Czech Republic and “gypsies” - 1938 vs. 2012

Romea

October 16^th 2012

Czech Republic and “gypsies” - 1938 vs. 2012

By František Kostlán

1 December 1938 - District Governor in Poděbrady, speaking to the governing body of the provincial authority in Prague: “Every day I am continually challenged, at work, in society and by various individuals, with getting the Government to correct this evil, and the most reliable way to do this is unequivocally the establishment of concentration camps for gypsies and vagrants. The incoming new Government would immediately gain the general sympathy and thanks of all classes of society were it to introduce such measures.”

24 August 2011 - Czech Senator Jaroslav Doubrava (Severočeši.cz - “North Bohemians.cz”): “In my opinion, the Army should be prepared in any event, because what is starting to happen here exceeds all tolerable limits... The Government and the responsible bodies of the state administration are overlooking the racism coming from the side of the Gypsies… Recent events are proof of what I am saying. There is an unequivocal need for tougher punishments, to not be afraid to give these thugs the maximum possible sentences. We should make the law more strict and increase the maximum sentences possible. The fun has to stop here now. The situation is very serious. Do we want the Gypsies to burn down our towns like they do in England? … I am getting ready to ask the appropriate bodies to thoroughly address this situation and I will try to submit bills in the Senate to make our legislation more strict. In any event, I will speak with my colleagues and do my best to get us to stop closing our eyes to this aggression and terror. It’s time to take action.”

19 April 2012 Czech Senator Vladimír Dryml (a member of the Czech Social Democratic Party when he made this statement, today a member of the Zeman Supporters’ Citizens’ Rights Party - SPOZ): “The high criminality of Romani people and the feeling that they enjoy impunity because of the implementation of positive racism by the Czech justice system and the empty, false opinions of the weird human rights defenders in the EU and in our country are now bearing fruit... Laws should apply the same to everyone and the law must be enforced rapidly and, in the case of racism, also harshly, and that applies to everyone, in particular Romani people.”

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5 February 1939 - The village council in Svatobořice, writing to the Prime Minister of the Czech-Slovak Government, Rudolf Beran: “If until now a bad policy of humanism has been in place, it is time to take another path. We should not be criticized for wanting to cleanse the tribe of our small nation of parasites like the gypsies.”

17 January 2012 - Czech MP Poslanec Otto Chaloupka (Public Affairs -Věci veřejné): “Romani leaders should first and foremost start making their livings decently. They are just as much parasites on the Romani community as the Romani community is a parasite on the majority society... Today they don’t have to work, they just constantly complain. A wave of physical violence is rising against the majority society and we just keep backing down... I understand this effort to do something about it and to do our best to include them, to re-educate a generation of these inadaptables and give them all the conditions in which to become decent people who won’t bother anyone and who won’t be despised, but how many years have we been doing our best to somehow include them - without any effect?”

19 April 2012 - Czech Senator Miroslav Krejča (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD): “The public’s view of Romani people is completely justified and we are too tolerant toward this inadaptable, parasitical minority.”

19 April 2012 - Czech Senator Pavel Lebeda (ČSSD): “Because most Romani people are criminals and loiterers living parasitically on the majority population and refusing to work, the public’s position on them is understandable and is amplified by the unacceptable positive discrimination of Romani people, not only in the social welfare area, but even in the justice system. The feeling that they are being defended, that they can commit crime with impunity, means Romani people are committing brutal crimes more and more frequently in addition to their traditional crimes against property. When we add to that the problems with civil coexistence and the widespread drug addiction among Romani people, no one should by surprised by the majority population’s aversion toward them.”

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6 July 1939 - District commander of the gendarmerie in Litomyšl, speaking to the District Authority there: “It must first be clear that the opinions of the ‘humanists’ who only know the gypsies from poetry or melancholy little songs,... are irrelevant..., and their opinions must not be taken notice of in the least in our future work to subdue the gypsies if we are to achieve our purpose and rid humanity of an evil worse than cancer.”

19 April 2012 - Czech Senator Zdeněk Schwarz (Civic Democratic Party - ODS): “The concept of racism in the context of the problems of Romani people is being intentionally abused by those same troubled Romani people and by some politicians who are themselves parasites on this problem and don’t know how to solve it. Unfortunately, the media is complicating the situation even further by reporting to the public in a way that is insufficient, not objective, or is unequivocally pro-Romani. A typical example of this is the recent case of the severely injured 15-year-old boy from Břeclav who has become an invalid for life. Why aren’t the media following this case with the same intensity and to the same extent as they followed the case of the Romani burn victim Natálka?”

(Editor’s note: The case in Břeclav was covered just as profusely by the Czech media as was the case of young Natálka. Moreover, it was later proven that the 15-year-old boy in the Břeclav case had completely fabricated the allegations that his injuries were caused by “Romani” assailants and that no attack ever took place. The number of such fabricated cases alleging that Romani people have perpetrated violence is rising sharply here.)

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30 November 1939 - Circular released by the Interior Ministry of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the provincial authorities in Brno and Prague: “The bodies and offices under your direction shall be tasked with calling on all gypsies to settle permanently by the end of January 1940 and to cease their itinerant ways. Their nomad documents will also be confiscated. Whoever does not obey will be assigned to the disciplinary labor camps.”

19 April 2012 - Czech Senator Petr Pakosta (BEZPP): “The Gypsies themselves are to blame for the Czech public’s negative attitudes towards them. Their avoidance of work, their growing aggression, their lifestyle at the expense of the majority population is entirely the result of their own decisions.”

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17 January 1940 - Police directorate in Brno, speaking to the Provincial Authority there: “Because of the nature of the gypsies’ race and their Semitic origins, their strong clannish instinct and inborn tendency to wander the world must be subjected to the strictest legal measures ever to be issued for the control of gypsy malfeasance.”

24 August 2011 - Czech Senator Jaroslav Doubrava (Severočeši.cz - “North Bohemians.cz”): “I heard a gypsy teenager say to his friend: ‘I don’t want to fuck my mother anymore, man, I would rather fuck my sister, but only Dad gets to fuck her and he would beat me up.’ I felt like fainting... Unfortunately, it is still the case that most gypsies consider work to be the worst possible way to make a living... We don’t want to watch them destroy our region, and we’re going to do something about it irrespective of all this disingenuous bullshit about human rights and tolerance - before it’s too late. That community is illiterate. Who is preventing their access to education? Only they themselves, because they explicitly do not want to learn.”

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9 March 1942 - Government Edict No. 89 on the preventive control of crime: “For the purpose of protecting society from wrongdoers, police preventive custody is enacted. This police preventive custody is being performed in special internment camps. The length of such police preventive custody is not subject to restriction.”

22 September 2011 - Ivana Řápková, Czech MP for ODS, when she was still Mayor of Chomutov, speaking after a demonstration by human rights defenders and Romani people in her town was attacked by ultra-rightists while municipal officials and police stood by: “We want calm in Chomutov. That is why we will not permit any more such demonstrations, whether they are convened by Romani people or by left or right-wing extremists.”

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5 February 1943 - General Commander of the undercover Protectorate Police in Bohemia, speaking to government counsel Dr Schneider (in German): “It has been established that the quarantine of the gypsies in Hodonín could be cancelled before the end of this month because we have not yet discovered any cases of spotted typhus, so the gypsies can be transported to Auschwitz after thorough delousing and disinfecting of their clothing... The transport of the gypsies will be accomplished on the basis of the SS Reichskommandant’s order of 16 December 1942.”

15 August 2006 - Liana Janáčková, (then and now) Mayor of the Municipal Department of Mariánské Hory and Hulváky of the town of Ostrava, speaking at a public meeting of the housing department: “I understand it’s unfair to you all, but I really don’t have anywhere else to put these gypsies unless I take some dynamite and blow them to bits... Unfortunately, I am a racist, I disagree with integrating the gypsies so that they will live all over the municipality. We chose the Bedřiška area, so that’s where they will be, with a high fence, an electrified one, it’s all the same to me... and I’ll shout that to the whole world.

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24 August 1943 - Criminal Police Directorate of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Brno, to the General Commander of the undercover Criminal Police in Prague (in German): “... on 21 August and 22 August 1943 a transport of 767 gypsies to Auschwitz was performed. ...on 22 August 1943 at 5:30 the transport was handed over to the German gendarmerie in Moravská Ostrava for further transport to Auschwitz. The transport and handover of the gypsies took place without a single flaw. After the gypsies were transported away, there remain 32 persons at this time in gypsy camp II in Hodonín by Kunštát... .”

15 August 2006 - Jiří Jezerský (running for TOP 09), (then and now) Vice-Mayor of the Municipal Department of Mariánské Hory and Hulváky of the town of Ostrava, speaking at a public meeting of the housing department, during the debate over the Romani residents of the Bedřiška settlement: “Give me a gun license and permission to shoot my weapon and I’ll go do it.”

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1 February 1944 - Criminal Police Directorate of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in Brno to the Criminal Police there: “With respect to the final solution of the gypsy question, i.e., the expatriation of gypsies from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, this was fulfilled and thereby the following decrees are no longer necessary: Interior Ministry Decrees from 13 February and 30 May 1941… .”

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Sources:

The quotes from the dignitaries of the Second Republic era and from the time of the Nazi occupation (1938 - 1944) were taken from a speech made by historian Michal Schuster at the commemorative ceremony at Hodonín by Kunštát on 19 August 2012. In that speech, Schuster also said:

“The Nazi genocide of Romani people concurred with the prevailing prejudices against this minority in Europe prior to the Nazis’ rise to power. Measures taken by the authorities in those days grew out of the xenophobic position of society back then. For people living in Europe during the 1930s, it was not necessarily curious or disturbing - and in most cases it was not curious or disturbing - for there to be a gradually radicalizing tendency heading toward suppressing the rights of various groups and eventually leading to the so-called ‘Final Solution’.”

The quotes from present-day politicians dated 19 April 2012 are from an article published on news server euportál.cz, part of the group of websites run by Parlamentní listy, an online periodical known for its anti-Romani tendencies. The headline for that article also influenced this one.

Czech MP Ivana Řápková (ODS) is fighting a remorseless battle in this regard and we will soon be reviewing it. Racist Czech Senator Doubrava is green with envy over her ongoing legislative anti-Romani crusade.

Translated by Gwendolyn Albert

Holocaust Remembrance Day

In 1935, Hitler issued the Nuremburg Laws, declaring both Jew and Gypsy were ineligible citizens in the Reich because of impure bloodlines. Himmler organized the death camps and killing squads and Jews and Gypsies died side by side in the gas chambers.  6 million Jews and 3 to 5 million Gypsies were murdered due to race. The atrocities the Russians discovered at Auschwitz laid the foundation for the definition of genocide adopted by the UN in 1948.

Since then, Holocaust scholars have forgotten about the Rromanies, known as “Gypsies,” allowing history to repeat itself. European politicians blame them for a poor economy and crime. In the Czech Republic, Rromani children aren’t allowed to attend public schools and over 90,000 Rromani women have been sterilized since 1980. Italy fingerprinted and photographed the Rromani in 2008. Neo-Nazis in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Italy murder Rromani with near impunity. Germany, France, and Italy deport the Rromani, and England practices illegal evictions.

In October of 2011, Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Right for the Council of Europe declared “The importance of teaching about Roma history cannot be overemphasized. [r]aising awareness of the Roma genocide and building … memorial sites are the least states could do to honor Roma victims.”

The UN declared January 27 ‘International Holocaust Remembrance Day’ to “[c]ondemn ‘without reserve’ all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, whenever they occur." Yet Rromanies will not be allowed to participate in the UN’s ceremony.

Rromanies aren’t usually allowed inside the gates of Auschwitz for their ceremonies either. The Rromani have been told their participation would “dishonor the memory of the true victims.”

The Holocaust didn’t happen in a bubble. Please remember all victims on January 27 and reject intolerance.

Museum explores Nazi persecution of Gypsies during Holocaust

This article is used with permission from Stars and Stripes © 2012 Stars and Stripes. If you wish to reuse this article please contact Stars and Stripes at permission@stripes.osd.mil before doing so. To read the entire article written by Stars and Stripes writer Nancy Montgomery and to read other interesting pieces, please follow the link http://www.stripes.com/news/heidelberg-germany-museum-explores-nazi-persecution-of-gypsies-during-holocaust-1.164975

Heidelberg, Germany: Museum explores Nazi persecution of Gypsies during Holocaust

ByNancy Montgomery

Stars and Stripes

Published: January 2, 2012

View Gallery (5 images)

Among the exhibits at the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg, Germany, is a wall of photos and list of names of the many thousands of Sinti and Roma who perished at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during the Third Reich.

Courtesy of the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma

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Anneliese Franz smiles for the camera as she stands on Heidelberg’s Philosopher’s Way, the castle ruins visible behind her. She’s a young woman with dark hair wearing a pretty dress, and although it’s 1944, she has somehow not been rounded up by the Nazis and murdered.

Franz was a Sinti — a Zigeuner, or Gypsy, according to the Germans. That made her, like the Roma Gypsies of eastern Europe — and 6 million Jews — part of the “alien strain” the Nazis rooted out, dispossessed, deported and killed during the Third Reich.

The photo of Franz is one of many portraits at a unique Heidelberg museum: the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma.

“It’s the only exhibition about the Sinti and the Roma and the Holocaust in Europe and the whole world,” said Joschi Rose, a center employee.

The center opened in 1997, 15 years after the German government formally acknowledged the genocide against the Sinti and Roma, the preferred name of the ethnic group that originated in India, came to Europe about 1,000 years ago, and is still subject to discrimination and derogatory stereotypes.

The Nazi genocide of the Roma and Sinti is less well-known than the Holocaust, in part because the Roma and Sinti were more marginalized than Jews before the Nazis came to power because of greater levels of poverty and illiteracy and less organization by Roma and Sinti communities, historians say. In fact, because of the number of Sinti and Roma living before the Holocaust isn’t clear — many of them were nomadic — neither is their death toll.

Both had been stigmatized and persecuted for centuries.

“But there were many ways they lived together normally (with Germans),” Rose said. “Before 1933, Sinti and Roma were more integrated into the community.”

Historians estimate 500,000 were exterminated as part of the Nazis’ attempted annihilation of entire peoples they deemed subhuman. The center describes how it happened, through documents and photographs from the Nazis juxtaposed with family photographs of the murdered and some of their personal histories.

Visitors to the center can see an image of Johann Trollmann, a young Sinti boxer who was stripped of his light-heavyweight title by the Nazis in 1933 after winning a fight. Trollmann avoided earlier deportations by being sterilized — the same way that Franz escaped death. She was sterilized at the University of Heidelberg.

Trollmann, though, was eventually sent to a concentration camp, where he was beaten to death.
Roma and Sinti were all identified, measured and recorded with the help of the doctors at the Research Center for Racial Hygiene, established in 1936. According to the center, “24 details on the head alone” were measured in the pseudoscientific pursuit of classifying people.
One of the most haunting images is of four young Roma girls, starved into near skeletons, who were part of Joseph Mengele’s unspeakable twin experiments at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps.
In fact, historians say, Roma and Sinti suffered disproportionately in the experiments carried out by Nazi doctors and anthropologists.

“Mengele once had a family of eight murdered so that their different colored eyes could be sent to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology in Berlin-Dahlem,” says the voice on the tour headset.

DIRECTIONS
The Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma is located in Heidelberg’s old town at Bremeneckgasse 2, Heidelberg 69117. The closest parking is a multistory parking garage P12, Kornmarkt/Schloss.

TIMES
The center is open 9:30 a.m.- 7:45 p.m. Tuesday; 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday; and 11 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. weekends. Closed Mondays.

COSTS
Admission is free.

FOOD
There are plenty of restaurants with a variety of price ranges just a couple of blocks away on the city’s main pedestrian street.

INFORMATION
Call 06221-981102 or visit sintiundroma.de. Interpretive headsets in English are available at no charge. If planned in advance, a tour guided by a historian is also available at no charge.

 

           

UN HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE EVENT NEGLECTS FATE OF ROMA

This article comes to us via the Roma Virtual Network. It appeared on The Roma Buzz Monitor, located at http://www.romabuzzmonitor.net/2011/12/roma-must-be-included-in-un-holocaust-event/. Yet again, the UN ignores us, making a statement in their silence. We ask, as does Grattan Puxon, that you stand up on April 8 and claim history, claim your rights, and protest the world's indifference.

 

UN HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE EVENT NEGLECTS FATE OF ROMA

11/12/2011 – As announced by the UN it looks like the next international Holocaust Remembrance event will once again neglect to fully recognize the fate of the Romani people at the hands of Europe’s NAZI and fascists rulers.

This is particularly regretable at a time when intolerance against the 10 million Roma in Europe has reached a dangerous level. Roma are once more being beaten and murdered by neo-fascists on a daily basis, while entire camps and settlements suffer official clearances in the name of public order.

Among the most recent outrages occurred in the UK, where Prime Minister David Cameron gave his personal support to the eviction of some one hundred Romani and Traveller families from their own land at Dale Farm and other parts of the Basildon district in Essex.

Over the barricades at Dale Farm, stormed by British riot police firing 50,000 volt Taser stun guns, flew the flag of the United Nations – because the UN was protesting against this act of ethnic-cleansing.

Under Hitler’s New Order in Europe more than 500,000 “Gypsies” were exterminated on racial grounds, a large proportion of them children.

This was surely price enough to pay for a secure and honoured place to be assumed of right in the name of Romani victims and survivors in any Holocaust event

promoted by the world organization.

On Roma Nation Day, 8 April 2012, members of Romani associations around the globe will be holding rallies and demonstrations against the rise of “anti-Gypsy” racism, drawing attention to those who must now pay the price for wide-spread ignorance, prejudice and hatred through their exclusion and marginalisation on the outskirts of cities and town in 60 countries.

We request that the United Nations ensure that Roma representatives are invited to the Holocaust Remembrance on 27 January and that reporting reflect that participation.

We ask, moreover, that all stand up with us on Roma Nation Day 2012 to demonstrate opposition to racism of every kind.

Grattan Puxon

co-author

Gypsies Under the Swastika

former general secretary

International Romani Union.

The Romani Holocaust and Contemporary Challenges: Tackling Discrimination and Human Rights Abuse of Roma

The following article comes from the Roma Virtual network and touches the key subject and area of interest to O Porrajmos Education Society. We firmly believe that without a strong understanding of Rromani history, the world and the Rromani , will never be able to move forward towards equal human rights for the Roma. We are a people who have had our own history handed to us by other countries. We are dictated to in classroom textbooks, even if those textbooks do so by excluding us. Failure to educate students on the truth is an open invitation for error. Students will believe the racists, the deniers, or the other uneducated individuals they see in the media. If we want to stop the racists we must take a lesson and begin, as Hitler did, with the youth. We must take control of what is taught and in order to do that, we must claim our history, learn it, and teach it. We must demand that our legacy is taught in schools around the world, not as a footnote, but in an equal setting, side by side with any other nation. We must demand the nations recognize us in memorials as victims so that future generations will have a better understanding of our suffering and our fight for our basic human rights.



Council of Europe: Commissioner of Human Rights
Chisinau 20-21 October 2011

CommDH/Speech(2011)13
English only

The Romani Holocaust and Contemporary Challenges: Tackling Discrimination and Human Rights Abuse of Roma
Intervention by Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Thomas Hammarberg

There is a red thread running through the history of Roma people, the deeply-rooted anti-Gypsyism to which they are still overwhelmingly subjected and the discrimination and marginalisation which characterises their position across Europe today.

If we want to promote the inclusion of Roma in society, we cannot work on the surface; we must dig deeper and address all the different aspects that have concurred, and still concur, to make of the biggest minority in Europe also the most discriminated against and excluded. Roma history is one crucial point at which to pick up the thread.

The importance of teaching about Roma history cannot be overemphasised. Teaching about Roma history, raising awareness of the Roma genocide during the Second World War, and building and maintaining memorial sites are the least states could do to honour Roma victims.

After decades of denial or neglect, these initiatives also powerfully symbolise society’s acknowledgment of the human dignity of the Roma. This is central to combating anti-Gypsyism, which feeds precisely on denial of equal human dignity (or carelessness towards equal human dignity) for this part of Europe’s population.

In my review of the areas on which I believe Europe and its countries must concentrate their efforts towards Roma inclusion, anti-Gypsyism is therefore a natural stepping stone.

Anti-Gypsyism

Anti-Gypsyism is perhaps the most powerful mechanism of Roma exclusion. No programme aimed at improving the situation of the Roma populations, be at international, national or local level, can be successful without resolute action to combat anti-Gypsyism. There are several key actors that should be involved when working against anti-Gypsyism:

First, politicians and public opinion leaders. Racist or stigmatising anti-Roma rhetoric has been on the rise. This has included generalisations about criminal behaviour, with well known examples from France, Italy, Hungary and the Czech Republic. In some cases, these words were understood as encouraging violent action against the Roma, such as mob violence and pogroms. Anti-Roma speech, including during electoral campaigns, must stop. It should be strongly condemned in all cases and punished when it breaks laws against incitement to hatred. This is not the case at present, as witnessed during my May 2011 visit to Milan, where posters all around the city warned against the risk of the city turning into a “Gypsytown”. Political parties should adopt self-regulatory measures to exclude racist language.

Second, action must be intensified against extremist groups. These groups have been very active in galvanising segments of the public against Roma. Recent events in Hungary, Czech Republic (North Bohemia) and Bulgaria show that this is a real threat. Members of these extremist groups have been found to be at the origin of a number of hate crimes targeting Roma -- some of an exceptional cruelty -- for instance in Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Third, anti-Gypsy stereotypes also continue to be spread and perpetuated in several media across Europe. A number of journals and broadcast media have been only reporting on Roma in the context of social problems and crime. Reporters and editors should not be megaphones for particular interests. However, they can contribute to a fairer society through genuine professionalism, which can be achieved through better self-regulation and ethical journalism.

Fourth, we need to act directly on the general population to eradicate anti-Gypsyism. As mentioned above, this must be done through teaching of Roma history and culture. I have repeatedly called on Governments throughout Europe to translate the Council of Europe Factsheets on Roma History in their national languages in order to use and disseminate them as widely as possible in their national contexts, including schools.

Racist violence

In many countries, Roma are vulnerable to racist violence directed against their persons and property. These attacks have sometimes resulted in serious injuries and death. This violence has been prevalent in post-1989 Europe, with a notable increase of serious cases in recent years. The spate of attacks in Hungary, Italy and Czech Republic registered in the last three years are witnesses to this.

It is not only members of organised fascist or neo-Nazi groups who are behind these attacks. In some instances, non-Roma communities have engaged more or less spontaneously in vigilante violence against Roma. In other cases, the attackers were individuals motivated simply by racist hatred without any apparent political ideology.

Member states should ensure that the police thoroughly investigate racist offences, including by fully taking the racist motivation of criminal acts into account. They should also establish mechanisms for systematic monitoring of racist, including anti-Roma, incidents.

Treatment of Roma by law enforcement authorities

Patterns of discrimination and ill-treatment by police towards Roma are widely reported. Roma have been subjected to police violence in detention facilities and public spaces, such as Roma settlements during police raids. When investigations have been carried out, they frequently appear to have been biased or discriminatory. It is imperative (and an obligation highlighted by the Strasbourg Court) for the authorities to investigate effectively the possible racist motives in these situations. The establishment of independent police complaints mechanisms can help, among other things, to restore Roma trust in law enforcement authorities.

Roma have also been subjected to ethnic profiling, including during “stop-and-search” operations and in the context of their movement across international borders. Laws should explicitly prohibit racial profiling and establish a reasonable suspicion standard in police operations. The police must receive training in these issues.

Steps to establish trust between Roma communities and the police should be undertaken, such as the recruitment of Roma in the police or the recruitment and training of Roma mediators to liaise with the police.

Treatment of Roma by judicial authorities

A subject area not sufficiently researched is discrimination of Roma in the administration of justice. In a number of countries, Roma appear to be discriminated for instance in decisions to remand into custody, rates of prosecution and sentencing.

Some of the problems facing Roma in the field of criminal justice include: a lack of adequate representation when facing charges; an absence of respect towards Roma as witnesses; and deficiencies in interpretation services. The principle of the presumption of innocence is not always respected when Roma individuals are put on trial.

It is important that steps are taken to prevent racial discrimination against accused Roma persons who are subject to judicial proceedings so that these persons receive a fair trial.

Education

Discrimination and segregation in education is one of the factors with the most devastating long-term consequences for Roma. Because of governments’ failure to tackle this problem with sufficient resolve, generations of children in Europe continue to be relegated today to a future of second-class citizens.

Roma children can face difficulties when they try to enroll in schools; they are also often over-represented among those who do not attend regularly and drop out of school. More needs to be done to reverse this trend, with particular priority to be given to pre-school education.

In a number of countries, Roma children are disproportionately represented in schools for children with intellectual disabilities. They can also be sent to mainstream schools which are Roma-only, or to Roma only classes in mixed schools. In all cases, they receive sub-standard education.

The Strasbourg Court has addressed all these aspects in three important judgments (against Greece, for non enrolment; against Croatia, for separate classes; and against the Czech Republic, for education in schools for children with intellectual disabilities). These judgments now need to be fully implemented. The standards they set are binding on all states, which should make sure that their practices concerning education of Roma children are in conformity with these judgments.

Housing

The situation of many Roma with respect to the right to housing is characterised by: sub-standard material conditions; segregation; forced evictions; and homelessness. Discrimination plays a crucial role in determining all of these situations.

Residential segregation of Roma is evident in many countries. Some mayors have made efforts to ensure that Roma remain in certain delimited areas. They have used public funds to establish segregated housing provision. Spatial segregation has been in some cases reinforced by the construction of walls around Roma neighbourhoods. These destructive measures must stop.

Many Roma continue to live in sub-standard conditions in most of European countries, without heat, running water or sewage. I have repeatedly drawn the attention to the situation of Roma in a series of localities in and around Mitrovicë/Mitrovica in Kosovo^*, who have been, over the period of more than ten years, subjected to housing conditions in very toxic environments. The right of Roma to live in adequate housing in accordance with international legal standards needs to be guaranteed. All public utilities, including water, electricity, collection of waste and maintenance of access roads need to be provided to Roma, including in settlements.

Roma are also manifestly affected by lack of adequate recognition of tenure throughout the Council of Europe space. This situation directly leads to forced eviction. In some countries, forced evictions have increased in the last years, often targeting the same migrant Roma families, including children, repeatedly over short periods of time. This is the situation that was reported to me in Milan by a number of Romanian Roma families – they were moved often in the early hours of the morning; they often lost their property; and their children had to stop going to school. The authorities must respect the agreed standards on forced evictions. These require: genuine consultation with those affected; reasonable notice; access to legal remedies; compensation; and most importantly, alternative housing. Evictions must also not render individuals homeless.

Employment

Despite positive efforts in some countries, levels of unemployment among Roma are invariably at levels significantly higher than among non-Roma throughout Europe. Under-education and endemic discrimination are the main challenges affecting the inclusion of Roma in the labour market.

Measures to address Roma unemployment must include both assistance to victims of discrimination in claiming their rights and positive measures targeting Roma specifically. During my visit to Madrid last April, I have had an opportunity to learn about Spain’s ACCEDER Programme on access to employment for Roma, which has been noted as an example of good practice. The programme has promoted strong partnerships at local, regional and national levels and has reportedly benefited tens of thousands of Roma. This includes almost 40,000 employment contracts concluded.

Special attention should be paid to Roma women who suffer from double discrimination, as Roma and as women. This should include efforts to improve their socio-economic status and to ensure their access to education and health as preconditions for employment.

Health

Throughout Europe, the average life span of the Roma is shorter than that of non-Roma. Roma infant mortality rates are also higher. Among the causes for this are a lack of funds to pay for insurance or treatment; a lack of identification documents; and a lack of means of transportation from remote areas to healthcare facilities.

Healthcare providers also reportedly discriminate against Roma, including in the provision of emergency services. Some hospitals regularly segregate Roma patients from non-Roma patients, especially in maternity wards. In some countries, Roma have been excluded from healthcare schemes, as they cannot afford to pay health insurance contributions or are not formally employed or registered in employment agencies.

Geographically accessible and affordable healthcare should be provided to Roma without discrimination. Efforts should be made by member states in the field of preventive care and awareness-raising campaigns regarding Roma, particularly in the area of sexual and reproductive health of Roma women.

Statelessness

Tens of thousands of Roma live in Europe without an effective nationality. Lacking birth certificates, identity cards, passports and other documents, they are often denied basic rights such as education, healthcare, social assistance and the right to vote.

The problem exists in many countries in Europe, but it is particularly acute in the Western Balkans. In recent years, the UNHCR has run programmes in the Western Balkans to help Roma accessing personal documents. The European Union has also started similar projects.

However, what is really needed is meaningful interest on the part of authorities to tackle and resolve the issues. Without state-level commitments to ameliorate conditions so that currently excluded persons can have access to documents, for example via “amnesties” for persons with no birth certificates, there is little indication that these projects can have a major impact.

Migration and free movement

Roma have repeatedly been treated differently from non-Roma in the exercise of freedom of movement within European Union, to which they are entitled as EU citizens. The expulsions of Romanian Roma from France over the Summer 2010 have rightly received considerable international attention, but these practices are carried out in other countries, too, including Italy. Efforts to expel EU citizens in contravention of EU law, as well as other discriminatory measures aimed at hindering access to territory, should be stopped. The resources being used by EU member states to repatriate Roma who are EU citizens would be better spent facilitating their social inclusion.

Even when at risk of serious human rights violations, Roma face discrimination in accessing international protection on an equal footing with others. In some countries, Roma asylum seekers have been provided with forms of temporary protection which do not confer residence status or any progressive accrual of rights. The repeated provision of extremely short-term “tolerated” status has effectively prevented tens of thousands of third-country national Roma from integrating into host societies. Roma asylum-seekers and internally displaced persons should be treated the same way as non-Roma.

Many European countries have undertaken the practice of expelling Roma from their territory, including to Kosovo, despite the fact that Kosovo is at present unable to provide conditions for the sustainable reintegration of these returnees. I have repeatedly warned member states of the Council of Europe against forcibly returning Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians to Kosovo. Member states must also respect the agreed procedural safeguards applicable to forced return and respect the prohibition of the collective expulsion of aliens.

Sterilisation

In some countries, forced sterilisation of women, targeting especially Roma women, was a practice followed during Communist times. After the fall of communism, these practices became unlawful, but some health professionals have continued the practice in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with cases also having been documented in Hungary.

In November 2009, the Czech Ombudsman, Otakar Motejl, stated that as many as 90,000 women may have been sterilised on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia since the beginning of the 1980s.

The states concerned must acknowledge and apologise for these practices: this has been done only in the Czech Republic in November 2009.

They should also make effective remedies available to victims to obtain reparation and compensation. However, this is not the case in any of the countries mentioned. According to information available, only two Roma women (one in the Czech Republic and one in Hungary), have been able to obtain compensation so far for having been unlawfully sterilised.

Legislation must clearly define a requirement of free, prior and informed consent with regard to sterilisations, and be accompanied by implementing guidelines. There is progress to be made in this area, too, for instance in Slovakia.

Judicial and administrative sanctions must also be upheld against those persons liable for sterilising women without their full and informed consent.

Placement of children in institutional care

Roma children are often heavily over-represented among the children placed in out-of-family care, including institutional and foster care.

In a report published by the ERRC in June 2011, the percentages of Roma children in the institutions visited were 82,5% in Slovakia; 65,9% in Hungary; 63% in Bulgaria; 40,6 in Hungary and 10,4 in Italy.

These children are often placed in institutional care solely on grounds relating to the poor housing conditions or financial situation of their families. However, this practice contravenes international standards and must stop. Institutional placement of a child should remain the exception and should have as the primary objective the best interest of the child.

Roma and trafficking

Reports indicate that trafficking in persons in Europe affects Roma disproportionately – particularly but not only, Roma women and children. Roma are trafficked for various purposes including sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, illegal adoption and begging.

The vulnerability of Roma must be acknowledged in national policies regarding trafficking in human beings, without any stigmatisation. Protection measures should include training of law enforcement officials and awareness-raising campaigns targeting Roma communities, in particular in segregated and socially excluded communities.

* * * * * * *

Conclusions

As we have seen, the factors that result in the seriously sub-standard human rights situation of many Roma in Europe are numerous and interconnected. As a result, an effective government’s response can only take the form of systematic human rights work, which addresses all aspects in a manner that is both comprehensive and long-term.

Such systematic work can be based on the following guidelines:

European states should adopt comprehensive and adequately resourced strategies to improve the situation of Roma. These strategies should recognise the complementarity of inclusion and anti-discrimination. In particular, they should make clear that the responsibility for Roma inclusion rests to a considerable extent on the majority population. As a result, Roma inclusion measures should include both measures targeted at the Roma population (in particular positive measures) and measures targeted at the majority population (notably to reduce anti-Gypsyism and discrimination). It is important that reasonable progress is made on all areas mentioned earlier at the same time, and that no area is neglected.

National strategies should put a strong emphasis on the importance of local authorities’ involvement in Roma inclusion. The Summit of Mayors on Roma held in Strasbourg on 22 September has inaugurated an alliance of cities and regions for Roma inclusion – this is an initiative that will hopefully bring useful results.

An effective legal and institutional framework to counter discrimination and anti-Gypsyism is paramount. This includes in particular, effective anti-discrimination legislation and independent and adequately resourced national equality bodies that can assist with the implementation of this legislation. Extensive guidance is available on these aspects and governments should make the most of it. The legal framework must be completed through ratification of Protocol No. 12 to ECHR (which provides for a general prohibition of discrimination) and effective provisions against hate speech. The case law of the ECtHR regarding cases of discrimination against Roma – for instance, on segregated schooling and on anti-Roma violence – should be fully executed and more actively disseminated.

Participation of Roma must be ensured. They must be key partners in the designing, implementation and monitoring of policies regarding them at local and national level. In co-operation with them, the most appropriate ways of collecting quality, long-term data disaggregated by ethnicity must be devised. Without this data – and without a fair use of it by public authorities respecting data protection systems - it is virtually impossible to assess the effectiveness of measures taken for Roma inclusion or progress achieved. Therefore, securing durable advances becomes all the more difficult.

It should be ensured that the best possible use is made at national level of funding opportunities available, notably EU funds. This include securing a satisfactory absorption capacity, but also monitoring that the funds are actually used for the purposes for which they were allocated.

^* Throughout this text, all reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 (1999) and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.