Slovakia, formerly a part of Czechoslovakia, became an independent state in 1993. At that time, the transition to a market economy which started after the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989 was already under way. One of the first effects of the process was mass unemployment, which started at a meager 1.6% in 1990, but grew to almost 12% by 1991 and reached a historic high of 19.2% in 2001.

The Roma minority, which has been living in present-day Slovakia for centuries, was especially affected by the economic transformation. Under the Stalinist regime (1948 – 1989), many of them occupied unskilled positions in agriculture, manufacturing and construction. The regime pursued various paternalistic social policies intended to fully integrate them into the economy and forcibly assimilate them into the Stalinist version of a “civil society”.

On the one hand, these authoritarian policies included forcible dispersion of the Roma communities among the population, compulsory wage work, the promoting of sterilization as a form of planned parenthood among Roma women, and the education of many of their children, irrespective of their abilities, in “special schools” intended for intellectually disabled children. On the other hand, the policies led to increases in urbanization, literacy rates and life expectancy. The single-party state also suppressed open racism in employment relations or public culture. One of the goals of the Stalinist regime was to completely do away with Roma settlements in the countryside (some of which lacked sanitation) by 1990 and to provide their former inhabitants with the kind of standardized housing that had become symbolic of the former Eastern bloc.

With the fall of the regime, such centrally planned policies were abandoned. Collectivized agriculture and state businesses were quickly privatized or went bankrupt. Roma workers, many of them unskilled or less qualified, were some of the first to face mass layoffs. Racism and discrimination (including from the police), which went hand in hand with rising Slovak nationalism that led to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, came back with a vengeance.

Many Roma people found themselves out of work, unable to find any new jobs, and in a more and more precarious housing situation. Therefore, the population of Roma settlements, including ones that are geographically segregated and lack basic amenities, swelled during the 1990s. By 2004, the unemployment rate was 51% among Roma women and a staggering 72% among Roma men. Put briefly, most of the Roma were among the defeated in the transformation process.

The welfare cuts of 2003

After a period of nepotist transition under Vladimír Mečiar, Slovakia resumed the process of integration into the world market and transnational political structures. In the 1998 election, a left-right coalition government led by Mikuláš Dzurinda toppled Mečiar with broad popular support. It opened the country to foreign investment and introduced some reforms, including in the labor market. In 2002, it was replaced by a more openly right-wing government (led, again, by Mikuláš Dzurinda), which introduced a flat tax and implemented a series of “neoliberal” reforms in welfare, health care, education, the pension system, public transportation, and labor legislation.

The reform of the welfare system (passed in 2003, effective since February 2004) included elements of “workfare” and steep cuts in welfare provisions to the unemployed. These could reduce an unemployed family’s income by 22 to 53%. Poor Roma families were among the most affected by these measures.

The protests

At the beginning of February 2004, as the unemployed all over Slovakia received official notices from the government informing them of the changes, demonstrations broke out in the southeastern and eastern parts in Slovakia. On February 11, the first supermarket was looted by about 80 people in the historical town of Levoča. In the following days, the protests quickly spread to at least 42 towns and villages. Some took the form of peaceful assemblies and demonstrations, others involved the looting of supermarkets and grocery stores and clashes with the police.

The media quickly reported on the alcohol and cigarettes that the looters allegedly were most keen on. Less reported were banners like “We want work, not food stamps” and “We’ve had enough of capitalism”, or the fact that some of the early, peaceful protests were also attended by unemployed members of the “white” majority. Unfortunately, the media operation succeeded in establishing the image of hordes of barbarians asking for “free stuff”. After all, such a view was fully in line with the dominant racist discourse. As a result, the protesters had little support, if any, from the general population – even though the total unemployment rate stood at about 18% and the various reforms were generally disliked and opposed by trade unions.

The reaction

At first, the government denied any link between the unrest and the welfare reform. Only as the protests spread did officials admit that some of the municipalities were inadequately prepared to provide “activation jobs” (i.e., mostly unskilled jobs, often in community service, as part of “workfare”) to the unemployed. As the protests turned into looting, the government quickly became nervous and decided to clamp down.

In the largest police and armed forces operation since 1989, over 2000 troops were mobilized and sent to the affected regions. Army helicopters patrolled some of the demonstrations. The most significant confrontation occurred on 23 February 2004 in Trebišov (southeastern Slovakia), where police attacked an “unauthorized” Roma demonstration, attended by about 400 people. Using teargas and, in the freezing February cold, water cannons (reportedly for the first time since 1989), they pushed the protesters out of the town center.

Early next morning, around 240 policemen attacked a settlement the protesters were suspected to live in. Conducting house-to-house searches without providing any form of warrant or authorization, they beat people (including pregnant women, children, and persons with disabilities) using batons and electric cattle prods, leaving burns on their skin. During the 12-hour raid, up to 40 people were detained, only to be further abused while in custody.

Using force where necessary, the unrest was subdued in all of Slovakia by March 2004. In total, 200 Roma people were arrested (111 of them women), of which 42 were later convicted.

The impact

Although the protests failed to develop into a real movement and were swiftly defeated by brute force, they shook the country and had a lasting impact. Soon afterwards, the government made important concessions. It increased the so-called activation benefits by 50%, introduced scholarships and various subsidies for pupils and students from poor families, and increased funding for placement opportunities for the unemployed.

These changes affected all of the unemployed in Slovakia, regardless of their ethnicity. By putting up a fight and bearing the brunt of inevitable repression, the Roma unemployed, these losers of the transformation process, managed to secure at least somewhat better conditions for all.

This article is dedicated to the more than 70 000 of our working class brothers and sisters living in segregated settlements across Slovakia (as of 2013).

Source: Libcom.org

Date: 11.05.2023

Human rights activists and experts say local officials in several countries with significant Roma populations have used the pandemic to unlawfully target the minority group, which is Europe’s largest and has faced centuries of severe discrimination. With COVID-19 cases now resurging across the continent, some experts fear the repression will return, too.

To make matters worse, activists say such discrimination often draws little opposition from other Europeans and the Roma are reluctant to speak about it, fearing repercussions.

One afternoon, Azime Ali Topchu, 48, said the police-enforced lockdown of her village in Burgas, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast, made her family “really sad.”

“It was hard. Hard. For my whole family to go to work — for my husband and son they had to go, fill in the papers, so they could go through the police checks,” she said, as her three grandchildren played near piles of neatly stacked wood.

But Topchu, who lives in a one-story brick house next to her son and daughter-in-law, was unwilling to go much further than that. The streets of their village were sprayed with disinfectant — though not from the sky — several months earlier.

Topchu said she considered the disinfecting “something that had to be done.”

But other Roma villages — in Yambol, Kyustendil and elsewhere in Bulgaria — were showered with thousands of gallons of disinfectant from helicopters or planes usually used to fertilize crops in March and April, according to local authorities and Bulgarian Roma activists.

“That was clearly racist, because it was only done in Roma neighborhoods,” said Radoslov Stoyanov of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group. “The broader message that was sent to the non-Roma population was that the Roma are dangerous.”

The Roma people are descended from tribes in northern India, and centuries of persecution and marginalization have left them some of the poorest and least educated people in Europe. Known pejoratively as “gypsies,” many live in segregated neighborhoods, often with limited access to electricity, running water and health care. Many face discrimination in getting jobs, getting medical care and have a shorter average lifespan than non-Roma.

The stringent measures used against Roma communities come even though no big outbreak was ever reported among them — and echo the way some governments have used the pandemic as cover for repressive tactics. Many European countries do not track coronavirus cases among the Roma, but Slovak officials reported at the end of the summer that there had been 179 cases in Roma districts, out of a population of more than 500,000.

In May, two U.N. human rights advocates issued an open letter calling on the Bulgarian government to suspend its pandemic-related police operations in Roma neighborhoods and to “stop hate speech” against the group after one nationalist party leader described the communities as “nests of infection.”

Officials in other European countries have also targeted the Roma: A mayor in northern Moldova blamed their communities for spreading the virus, while a Ukrainian city official in Ivano-Frankivst instructed police to evict all Roma from the town. This is not limited to Eastern Europe: the mayor of a village outside Paris called on residents to contact the French government “as soon as you see a caravan circulating,” referring to the Roma.

In a recent report, the European Roma Rights Centre documented 20 instances of what it called disproportionate force by police against Roma in five countries — noting that was an unusually high number. In one video on social media, a Romanian officer appeared to repeatedly press a knee into a handcuffed man as he was dragged following the arrest of several people for flouting virus restrictions. Elsewhere in the country, the group reported police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse a group of Roma, including children, who had climbed on top of an apartment block during the lockdown.

Slovak authorities are investigating allegations that an officer beat five Roma children with a baton and threatened to shoot them after they were found playing outside their village, breaching the national quarantine.

“It is unacceptable for the police to use force against children,” said Maria Patakyova, Slovakia’s public defender of rights, the head of an independent body that aims to uphold human rights. “Not even the pandemic can be a reason to use disproportionate policing methods.”

Last month, Patykova’s office concluded that quarantines in three Roma communities unfairly infringed their right to free movement, though the regional leaders who imposed the measures have dismissed the findings.

Numerous Roma activists and others also raised concerns when Slovak soldiers were brought in to conduct COVID-19 testing in some Roma villages and patrolled neighborhoods armed with automatic rifles.

Juraj Jando, who also works for the rights defender’s office, said despite this show of force, the government failed to help communities meaningfully fight the virus. For instance, people who came into contact with someone who was infected and wanted to stay in a government-run isolation facility had to pay 13 euros ($15) per day to cover their food expenses — a sum that would be beyond many in Roma communities. Authorities were also often quick to seal off entire Roma neighborhoods even when case numbers were below the threshold they had set for such actions.

Petar Lazarov, a spokesman for Slovakia’s Interior Ministry, said all actions taken were in accordance with the country’s public health laws.

In Bulgaria, the authorities’ use of thermal drones to measure the temperatures of entire Roma neighborhoods has raised surveillance concerns.

“This wouldn’t have happened in a white, middle-class neighborhood, and it shouldn’t have happened to the Roma either,” said Jonathan Lee of the European Roma Rights Centre.

Krassimir Brumbarov, a Roma health worker in Burgas, where thermal drones were used, noted that people were also angered by the nearly constant police presence in the village.

The mayor’s office in Burgas declined to respond to repeated questions from the AP about why such measures were taken.

As in Slovakia, Lee said Bulgarian authorities did little to help the Roma protect themselves from the virus, noting that at the height of the epidemic in April, about 500 Romani residents in Tsarevo were left without water for 10 days.

Ognyan Isaev, a Roma activist in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, said he worried that discriminatory measures might be reintroduced if the pandemic worsens, noting that the local authorities who implemented them have faced little pushback.

“Next time,” said Isaev, “it could be even worse.”

Source: AP News

Date: 02.11.2020

On International Roma Day this year, Amnesty International calls on the government of Slovakia to ensure that human rights are at the centre of any COVID-19 response measures. Amnesty International is seriously concerned that conducting targeted testing in Roma settlements without providing Roma the necessary means to protect themselves will only add to stigmatisation and prejudice they already face.

View report in English

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a pan-European network of green NGOs, found Roma communities were often excluded from basic services, such as piped drinking water, sanitation and rubbish collection, while frequently living at or near some of the dirtiest sites in Europe, such as landfills or contaminated industrial land.

As many as 10 million Roma people live in Europe, including 6 million in EU member states. While their social exclusion has been long documented, EEB researchers say denial of basic services and exposure to pollution has been overlooked.

The EEB, in collaboration with researchers in central and eastern Europe, found 32 cases of “environmental racism” in five European countries: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and North Macedonia. The researchers also drew on existing work on living conditions of Roma people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Absence of water, sanitation and rubbish collection were problems in more than half the case studies, such as Stolipinovo in Bulgaria, Europe’s largest Roma settlement and part of the city of Plovdiv. About 60,000 people are estimated to live in the district, but many are cut off from piped water and sanitation services from the rest of Plovdiv, a European capital of culture in 2019.

In Hungary, access to the public water supply for some Roma communities was shut down during summer heatwaves – decisions affecting 800 people in Gulács in August 2017 and 1,500 inhabitants of Huszártelep in 2013. The northern Hungarian city of Ózd received nearly €5.5m (£4.8m) from Switzerland to improve provision of running water to Roma communities, but researchers said many had not benefited from the scheme. Authorities claimed Roma households did not pay their bills.

Previous research concluded that only about 12% of Roma communities had functioning flush toilets and drainage systems.

One vivid example of the desperate conditions Roma people can find themselves living in is Pata-Rât, on the outskirts of Cluj-Napoca in Romania’s north-west, known for its gothic architecture and baroque palaces.

At Pata-Rât about 2,000 Roma people live next to or on a landfill site. “It’s horrifying,” said the Roma rights activist Ciprian Nodis, who has visited several times. “It’s similar to what you can see in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. People are living in extreme poverty with no access to utilities, no access to electricity, water. They live in improvised shelters made from recyclable materials that they find on the landfill – cardboard, or rotten wood, or things like that. Most of them work in the landfill.”

He identified four separate Roma communities living at Pata-Rât: the first group came in the 1960s, and the most recent arrivals in 2013 when Roma residents of Cluj-Napoca were evicted from the city centre. The least fortunate of the four communities live on the landfill itself, where the air, water and soil is deeply polluted. “It’s a living hell, especially for the children who are born there. It’s bad luck to be born in Pata-Rât,” Nodis said.

But Pata-Rât is not even exceptional. Researchers identified more Roma communities living on or next to landfill sites at Fakulteta, near Sofia. On the outskirts of the Transylvanian city of Turda, Roma families live on a former industrial site contaminated with mercury. Unsurprisingly Roma people in the 32 case studies were vulnerable to respiratory and infectious diseases, accidents and depression.

Meanwhile Roma communities not living on degraded land risk eviction, without legal recourse. About 100 Roma people living in Constanƫa in Romania were forced to move to allow for the creation of a holiday resort.

Patrizia Heidegger, one of the report’s authors and the director of global policies and sustainability at the EEB, said the 32 cases were only the tip of the iceberg.

Denial of basic services persisted, despite Roma communities having being settled in the same villages and cities for many years. Absence of water or sanitation was “not due to not having lived in the place for a long time. It’s really total neglect of neighbourhoods with Roma populations.”

The problem was compounded as Roma communities were often blamed for the pollution and land degradation, she said. “They are perceived as the environmental problem and not as communities that are disproportionately affected by exposure to pollution or the non-provision of environmental services, which then leads to the degradation of their environment.

Roma communities faced huge prejudices, she said, citing attitudes such as “‘they don’t care about a clean environment, they don’t care where they live, they work in waste dumps anyhow so they live there.’ These are racist prejudices.”

The EEB is now calling on EU authorities and member states to increase efforts to protect health, while urging them to recognise the scale of the problem. “We need to acknowledge that environmental racism exists in Europe. That is the first step,” Heidegger said.

Source: The Guardian

Date: 15.04.2020

Source: Georg Eckert Institute

Date: 06.04.2020

Es ist nur ein Gerücht, aber es entfacht eine verheerende Wirkung: Angeblich haben Roma-Migranten, die aus Deutschland und anderen Teilen Westeuropas nach Bulgarien zurückreisten, das Coronavirus in den Balkanstaat eingeschleppt. Die ersten beiden Bulgaren, die sich infizierten und später sogar starben, sollen sich, wie es heißt, nur deshalb angesteckt haben, weil Roma entgegen den Empfehlungen der bulgarischen Regierung sorglos gehandelt und so ihre Landsleute in Gefahr gebracht hätten. Von „mangelnder Disziplin“ der Roma ist die Rede.

Soweit die Legende. In der Praxis haben nun in Bulgarien Politiker der extremen Rechten die Regierung aufgefordert, als „nationale Maßnahme“ Kontrollstellen an allen von Roma bewohnten Stadtvierteln einzurichten. Wie der Zentralrat Deutscher Sinti und Roma berichtet, sind in der Folge von nationalen und lokalen Behörden bereits mehrere Roma-Stadtviertel abgeriegelt worden.

Herbert Heuß, wissenschaftlicher Leiter des Zentralrats, kritisiert: „Damit werden Roma grundrechtswidrig von jeder medizinischen Versorgung ausgeschlossen, die Versorgung mit Lebensmitteln und allen anderen Gütern des täglichen Bedarfs wird abgeschnitten.“ Und dies bei ohnehin desolaten Wohnverhältnissen in den Siedlungen. Oft fehlt der Zugang zu Trinkwasser.

Romani Rose warnt vor neuen Pogromen

Der Vorsitzende des Zentralrats, Romani Rose, warnt – auch an die Adresse der EU und der Regierungen betroffener Länder: „Roma dürfen nicht erneut als Sündenböcke von Nationalisten und Rassisten missbraucht werden.“ Er sieht in der Krise „die Gefahr von neuen Pogromen gegen Roma“.

Einer der Wortführer der Forderungen zur Abriegelung der Roma-Siedlungen in Bulgarien ist der für seine rassistischen Tiraden bekannte Europaabgeordnete Angel Dschambaski von der nationalen Bewegung Imro.

Nach Informationen des Zentralrats der Sinti und Roma sind die Behörden in drei bulgarischen Städten dem Appell des Rechtsextremisten bereits gefolgt und haben Roma-Wohngettos abgeriegelt, in denen insgesamt mehr als 50.000 Menschen leben – in Nowa Sagora, der Rosenöl-Stadt Kasanlak und Sliwen. Laut einem Bericht des Portals „Euractiv“ sehen sich beispielweise in Sliwen die rund 25.000 Roma aus dem Viertel Nadeschda einer regelrechten Blockade gegenüber: Jeder, der das Viertel verlassen wolle, werde von der Polizei kontrolliert. Für die Roma-Siedlungen in der Region um die Hauptstadt Sofia drohen vergleichbare Regelungen.

„Euractiv“ berichtet weiter, das Innenministerium in Sofia habe die sogenannten Roma-Vermittler aufgefordert, eine Notfall-Aufklärungskampagne über das Coronavirus zu starten. Innenminister Mladen Marinow drohte demnach, die eingesetzten Vermittler sollten endlich ihre Arbeit erfolgreich erledigen, ansonsten würden die Roma-Viertel von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten.

Eine verschärfte Stimmungsmache gegen Sinti und Roma in der Coronakrise gibt es in fast allen Ländern Mittel- und Osteuropas – von Rumänien über Ungarn bis zur Slowakei, aber auch in den Westbalkan-Staaten wie Nordmazedonien, Bosnien-Herzegowina, Serbien, Kosovo und Albanien. In den österreichischen Städten Linz und St. Pölten machten Kommunalpolitiker der rechtspopulistischen FPÖ vor dem Hintergrund der Ausbreitung des Coronavirus Sicherheitsbedenken gegen Roma-Lager geltend. Auch in Rumänien wurden bereits Forderungen von rechtsradikalen Kommunalpolitikern laut, Roma-Siedlungen abzuriegeln.

Viele Roma in extrem prekärer Situation

Dass nationalistische Politiker die Coronakrise nutzen, um Sinti und Roma auszugrenzen, ist allerdings nur ein Teil der aktuellen Probleme, wie Herbert Heuß vom Zentralrat weiter erläutert. Ausgangssperren und Reisebeschränkungen haben nach seinen Worten dazu geführt, dass viele Roma inzwischen praktisch ohne Einkommen sind, sich in einer „extrem prekären Situation“ befänden.

Viele Roma sind schon jetzt arbeitslos. Andere können ihre bisherigen Jobs als Flaschen- oder Schrottsammler – also als prekäre Selbstständige – unter den Bedingungen von Ausgangssperren im Moment nicht ausüben, vermutlich wochen- oder sogar monatelang. Weitere haben die Aussicht auf Verdienstmöglichkeiten als Erntehelfer zum Beispiel in Deutschland verloren – Bundesinnenminister Horst Seehofer (CSU) hatte am Mittwoch verfügt, dass die Einreise von Helfern beispielsweise beim Spargelstechen oder bei der Erdbeerernte bis auf weiteres untersagt ist. Unter den Erntehelfern sind in den vergangenen Jahren auch viele Roma gewesen.

In den Siedlungen ist man auf einen Ausbruch des Coronavirus praktisch in keiner Weise vorbereitet. Oft leben Hunderte und Tausende dicht an dicht zusammen, manchmal zehn und mehr Menschen in einem Raum zusammen. Eigentlich von den Behörden untersagte Kontakte lassen sich so kaum vermeiden. „Was passiert, wenn das Virus in diesen Siedlungen ausbricht?“, fragt sich Stephan Müller, externer Mitarbeiter des Zentralrats. „Das wird eine Katastrophe.“

Soziale Wohlfahrt deckt nicht den Lebensunterhalt

Die meisten osteuropäischen Länder haben nur eine begrenzte soziale Wohlfahrt – sie reiche nicht aus, um den Lebensunterhalt zu sichern, analysiert Zentralrats-Experte Müller. Er fragt sich: „Wie werden die Menschen überleben?“ Müller zum Tagesspiegel: „Der Rassismus gegenüber Roma, der Antiziganismus ist weit verbreitet. Aufgrund der katastrophalen Lebensbedingungen vieler Roma und ihren durch Korruption und Rassismus begrenzten Zugang zum Gesundheitswesen, besteht die Gefahr, dass viele Roma sich anstecken können und keine Behandlung erhalten.“ Der Zentralrats-Vertreter erwartet: „Rassisten werden nicht zögern, Roma zum Sündenbock für die Krise machen, was weitreichende Folgen haben kann.“

Der Zentralrat fordert umfassende Nothilfe: Tankwagen mit Trinkwasser, Lebensmittel- und Hygienepakete, Gesundheitsversorgung, dies alles in einer gemeinsamen Kraftanstrengung von Regierungen, EU, örtlichen Behörden und zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen. Romani Rose appelliert, diese „humanitäre Hilfe für alle betroffenen Menschen ohne Versorgung“ sei umgehend sicherzustellen. Geschehe das nicht, droht aus Sicht seiner Organisation zehntausenden von Roma in Europa demnächst eine Hungersnot. Vielleicht sogar hunderttausenden

Quelle: Tagesspiegel

Stand: 27.03.2020

The word “Zigeuner” (“gypsy”) is derived from the Greek athinganoi, meaning “untouchable” and refers to the position of Roma within the Indian caste system. Already in the thirteenth century, this exonym was applied to “asocial elements” – for example, within the context of the first European “edict against the Gypsy plight”. For the Nazis, the term was synonymous with “unwertes Leben” (unworthy of life) and was widely circulated in Nazi mass propaganda. Even today, the word is still often used without thinking about it.

Harri Stojka with his sisters Sissi (right) und Doris Stojka. Photo: Reinhard Loidl

The aim of the campaign Ich bin gegen das Wort “Zigeuner” (“I am against the word ‘Zigeuner’”) is to knowingly present the term as what it actually is: a negative and clearly discriminatory term, which is offensive to Roma. At the same time, the project aims to dismantle and fight prejudices against Roma and Sinti.<a id="anchor-footnote-1" href="https://www.eurozine.com/we-are-against-the-word-zigeuner/?fbclid=IwAR3bUeZ64FwtN9zpZUepRaMl2I-1GWqvlH9SY6rJMf-zeUTH-M4IocB7kZw#footnote-1" data-trigger="manual" data-placement="bottom" data-toggle="popover" data-html="TRUE" data-content="Roma and Sinti are the largest ethnic minority in Europe There are between ten and twelve million Roma… „>1

The campaign was initiated by people closely associated with the Gipsy Music Association, and demands that “Zigeuner” disappear from media reports, product names, and ultimately from everyday use all together. They also point out that the majority of the Roma community in Austria does not want to be called “Zigeuner” and demand that this wish finally be respected. The correct term is “Roma and Sinti”.

It is true that some Roma do indeed call themselves “Zigeuner.” There are many reasons for this, the most important one being that the word “Zigeuner” means different things in different languages. Roma in Hungary and Romania proudly call themselves “Zigeuner”, while in Slovakia the same word means “thief”. However, even Roma are often unaware of its meaning and negative connotations. For this reason, the initiators stress the importance that the campaign target everyone: Roma as well as non-Roma.

Gilda-Nancy Horvath. Photo: Reinhard Loidl

A central element of the campaign are photos of people from politics, media and other fields, holding up signs with the hand-written words: “Ich bin gegen das Wort ‘Zigeuner’.” Support for the campaign has been surprisingly broad: over 1,000 people have allowed their photos to be taken. These photos have been displayed in various exhibitions, a book and a video, in addition to their use in public relations and media co-operations. The campaign also includes workshops, for example in schools that aim to dismantle the prejudices around the values, culture and images of Roma.

Das European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) hat ein Video erhalten, das zeigt, wie Polizisten wahllos Roma auf der Straße in Zborov (Slowakei) angreifen. Die Polizei drang am 16. April in das Roma-Viertel ein und begann willkürlich Roma zu schlagen – einschließlich Kinder und ältere Leute.

Drei Menschen benötigten medizinische Hilfe: ein fünfjähriger Junge, ein Mann in den 40ern mit einem Herzleiden und eine ältere Frau mit Behinderungen. Das ERRC hat erfahren, dass der Krankenwagen, der gerufen wurde, um die verletzten Mitglieder der Community zu behandeln, zeitweise von der Polizei behindert wurde. Zeug_innen, die die Gewalt gefilmt hatten, bekamen später Besuch von der Polizei und wurden aufgefordert das Filmmaterial zu löschen. Unser Informant weigerte sich.

Die Polizei war gerufen worden, nachdem ein Streit in der Nachbarschaft ausgebrochen war. Sie reagierte mit gezogenen Schlagstöcken, verursachte Terror unter den Bewohner_innen und schlug Männer, Frauen und Kinder, die ihr in den Weg kamen. Ein Bewohner sagte: „Wenn jemand versuchte, vernünftig mit ihnen zu reden und an sie appellierte, aufzuhören, wurde er geschlagen.“

Innenminister Robert Kalinak hat Pläne angekündigt, mehr Polizeikräfte in Gemeinden mit hoher Roma-Bevölkerung einzusetzen.

Das ERRC hat Kriminalitätsstatistiken untersucht und herausgefunden, dass es sich bei den vorgeschlagenen Gemeinden nicht um diejenigen mit den höchsten Kriminalitätsraten handelt, sondern um diejenigen mit relativ hoher Roma-Bevölkerung. Aus den Daten der Regierung ergibt sich kein starker Zusammenhang zwischen hoher Roma-Bevölkerung in einer Gemeinde und erhöhter Kriminalitätsrate.

Die aktuelle Regierung benutzt Roma einmal mehr als Sündenbock für billige politische Ziele. Der Kampf gegen so genannte „Zigeunerkriminalität“ ist ein beliebtes Mittel slowakischer Politiker_innen, um an den unter Wähler_innen verbreiteten Antiromaismus zu appellieren. Es gibt wenig Beweise, dass es die Kriminalitätsrate in den Gebieten senken würde, wenn die Polizeikräfte in den Roma-Vierteln erhöht würde.

Quelle und Video: RAN
Stand: 29.05.2017