By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist

International outrage is growing over an Italian Facebook group that is calling for children with Down Syndrome to be gotten rid of by using them as targets at shooting ranges.

The ANSA news agency is reporting that Italian police are trying to track down the party responsible for setting up the page, which features a photo of a Down Syndrome baby with the word “idiot” scrawled across it.

The page proposes “an easy and amusing solution” to get rid of “these foul creatures” by using them as targets at shooting ranges.

As of late Sunday, the page had attracted nearly 1,700 members.
 
Italy’s equality minister Mara Carfagna, is promising to take legal action against those responsible for the page, denouncing it as “unacceptable and dangerous.”

“People’s ignorance has no limits,” Manuela Colombo, the president of a support group for families with Down Syndrome children told ANSA.

Police action to shut down the site may take time because Facebook is based in Palo Alto, California and the procedure entails a lengthy legal process.

Meanwhile, supporters of people with Down Syndrome have set up their own Facebook groups to denounce the page, one of which has already attracted more than 17,000 members.

© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace®  http://www.womenofgrace.com