RIGHTS: Xenophobia Rising Worldwide - U.N.

The right-wing government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has angrily denied charges of racism against its coalition partners, accusations made in a U.N. report on xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia released here. The 20-page report, which will go before the current session of the U.N. General Assembly ending mid-December, identifies ''two openly xenophobic parties,'' the National Alliance and the Northern League, in Berlusconi's coalition government, which has held power since June 2001. ''The representatives of these parties spread racist and anti-immigrant discourse in Italian society and have obtained the adoption of a particularly strict immigration law (the Bossi-Fini law, named for the leaders of these two parties), which was recently called into question by the Italian constitutional court,'' says Doudou Diene, a U.N. special rapporteur on human rights, in the report. In a letter to Diene, Ambassador Paolo Bruni of Italy says his government was surprised to see the two coalition partners included in the ''list of openly racist and xenophobic political and para-military groups.'' The letter says Rome was also surprised to find the Italian government referred to as another example of a coalition government ''between the right and extreme right.''