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Italy pulls stamps featuring South Tyrol because of missing German text

The Italian government recalled on Tuesday, two stamps that were issued in recent months, depicting the natural landmarks in the bilingual province of South Tyrol, located in the north, due to the lack of German inscriptions.

In a statement the ministry of industry said that the missing translation violated an article in the Italian constitution protecting linguistic minorities. It called it "anomaly", and ordered both an investigation and a bilingual version of stamps.

The Ministry removed the page that displayed the stamps.

South Tyrol was a mountainous region bordering Austria, which once belonged the Austro-Hungarian empire. It became part of Italy following World War I.

Benito Mussolini's fascist regime "Italianised", or forced the population to become Italian, which sparked local resentment. Separatist sentiments still linger today.

The province of Alto Adige, also known as Suedtirol, is fully bilingual and enjoys high levels of autonomy. German is more common than Italian.

The stamps that were withdrawn, which were due to be released on Tuesday, featured the Catinaccio mountain range, also known as Rosengarten, in the Dolomites and the Latemar mountain chain, both of which are part of an Italian series that features mountains, lakes, and parks.

Stamps that have design errors may become collectible. The "Gronchi Rosa" stamp, a 1961 stamp that was withdrawn the day after it was released because the map of South America had the wrong border between Peru and Ecuador. (Reporting and editing by Giulia Segriti and Aidan Lewis.

(source: Reuters)