Rome shelves ban on scavenging after protests

ROME (Reuters) - Rome's right-wing mayor has put on hold a new law banning poor people from scavenging in rubbish bins, after charities said it would have to be accompanied by more help for the destitute.

With Rome's Gianni Alemanno and other mayors being given new powers to police Italy's towns and cities by Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government, new laws against crime, begging and even picnicking in public are coming thick and fast.

"Mayors are competing to see who is the toughest 'sheriff', with recent by-laws on from everything from prostitution, drug pushing, begging, vagabonds, rubbish and hawking," said Monsignor Vinicio Albanesi of church charity Capodarco.

Alemanno proposed on Wednesday a by-law against people ransacking rubbish bins for food, clothes and things to sell saying it "made a mess because of the rubbish tipped all over the streets."

The mainly Roman Catholic charities who feed the poor in the capital protested immediately.

"I understand the very real concern about protecting health and hygiene, but those who are ransacking the bins need to have a chance to live," said Don Ciotti of the charity Abele.

Alemanno promised to work with charities "to check that these measures don't have negative social consequences."

The mayor, a former fascist youth leader who now belongs to the conservative National Alliance allied to Berlusconi, also announced this week that Rome traffic police would carry guns, for the first time in 35 years, to help combat street crime.

Berlusconi is deploying 3,000 army personnel to patrol 10 cities to boost the law-and-order campaign that helped bring him back to power for a third term in April's election.

(Reporting by Olivia Scarlett; editing by Andrew Roche)

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