18.04.2014 Central Council demands apology because of racist investigations

The Central Council of German Sinti and Rroma demands an apology from the government of Baden-Württemberg due to racist investigations in connection with the murders of the National Socialist underground (NSU), and the establishment of an investigation committee because of intra-police racism. On the occasion of the trial against Nazi perpetrators who had committed several racist murders, the chairman of the Central Council, Romani Rose, demanded a concession from the government: “Rose said on Wednesday in Munich, that especially in the case of the murdered Heilbronn police officer Michèle Kiesewetter, there has been a “general suspicion” against Sinti and Roma. He expected at least an apology by the state government of Stuttgart and an assurance that such events never happen again. “It is constitutionally inacceptable to put an entire ethnic group under suspicion”, said Rose” (Focus online 2014). “In July 2009, three detectives travelled to Serbia and surveyed a Roma man. […] The psychologists pointed out that man was “a typical representative of his ethnicity.” That means, lying was an essential part of his socialization. The man “obviously grew up in a world of lies and deception since his earliest childhood.” The racist remarks about the witness, and the Roma in general, were adopted by the state police without a distancing statement into the investigation files” (Tagesspiegel 2014). The case against the NSU-murderers is therefore indirectly also a lawsuit against institutional racism in the German police (compare Die Welt 2014, Stuttgarter Zeitung 2014, Südwestpresse 2014).