Gypsies census tactics clarified

Italy's Interior Ministry yesterday issued guidelines for a census of the country's Roma population, saying that Gypsies will only be fingerprinted if they don't have a valid identification.

The guidelines were sent to local authorities in Rome, Milan and Naples, where tens of thousands of Gypsies live in hundreds of shabby encampments built on the city outskirts.

Officials in the cities had already begun taking information from the inhabitants with varying methods after the Government ordered the census as part of a crackdown on street crime.