The European Parliament declared that fingerprinting of ethnic Roma and gypsies by Italy's government is a "direct act of racial discrimination." In a resolution passed today, parliament demanded that Silvio Berlusconi's extreme right wing government "refrain from collecting the fingerprints from Roma, including minors, as this would clearly constitute an act of discrimination based on race and ethnic origin". And it condemned, "utterly and without equivocation all forms of racism and discrimination faced by the Roma and those seen as 'gypsies'".