Greater Manchester Police has apologised ‘for any humiliation and distress caused’ after groups of kids were ordered to leave the city, a leading Travellers’ charity has said.
Well, they took time. And it was definitively racist.
Manchester Police forced Roma and Traveller’s children who were attending a Christmas market onto trains which left them 100 miles away from Manchester. Roma and Travellers association are considering legal actions and have requested apologies from the police.
A major police control operation was carried out at dawn by the Rome’s Carabinieri, with the support of the Dog Unit and a helicopter. This control focused on the Roma Camp in Via Candoni, which, according to the article is notoriously known as one of the hotbeds of crime in the capital. The intervention is part of a broader context of the fight against illegal activities, aiming to restore perceived and real security in the surrounding community. The operation involved an important identification action, during which 184 people of Romanian and Bosnian origin were registered, including 42 minors.
When you know that these camps are generally enclosed, and that you need to show you papers entering and leaving, you wonder …
The most well-known case of police brutality in Slovakia in the media is from Košice. It happened back in 2009. Ten Košice policemen forced Roma boys from the Luník IX housing estate to slap and kiss each other under the threat of a fight, ordered them to strip naked and stand with their hands above their heads, barked at them with unmuzzled dogs, and put a gun to one of their heads.
The police officers, who were recording everything on their mobile phones, were accused of harassing Roma between the ages of 11 and 17, who were suspected of robbing a pensioner. The case dragged on in court for years, they were convicted several times by the courts, eventually they were declared innocent and some of the dismissed policemen returned to the force. The final word is with the regional court, a hearing in this matter has not yet been scheduled.
The celebration of the Day of the Croatian Police and their patron Saint Michael was held in the building of the Međimurje Police Department in Čakovec. So far, ok.
The statement of the article saying that “Police officers should be given back their authority in the field, so that they can be efficient, especially in Roma settlements!” is definitively not ok.
The police and the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime committed direct discrimination against a Roma child from Prilep by failing to conduct a thorough and detailed investigation into how the child was injured in the head, chest and back and whether this was due to the use of excessive police force.
Surprised?
In the Novo Mesto region of Slovenia, a 48 years old man entered a school and beat up a Roma child. Well, the man is not a Rom, and, according to the article, “The police continue to gather information and determine all the circumstances. In order to clarify all the circumstances, they will conduct interviews with representatives of the school, children and parents. Based on the findings, appropriate action will be taken against the 48-year-old.”
Spot the issue? Just imagine it had been the other way around.
The Slovenian police union demanded that a member of the Parliament of the Svoboda Movement, Sara Žibrat, publicly apologize to all police officers for the doubts and unverified statements she made at one of the sessions in the Parliament. During the debate, Žibratova drew attention to information that the police officers in Kočevje allegedly beat up a minor Roma. The union strongly rejected her insinuations and emphasized that the supervision of the work of the police officers did not show any irregularities, nor was there any evidence that Roma were beaten.
Well ……
Two articles in the Slovenian press accusing the police of inaction in the face of Roma Crime. In one article, the police denies reports that the police in Kočevje recently locked themselves in the police station after people who were allegedly shot by Roma took refuge there.
At the request of several Slovenian mayors, the Minister of the Interior Boštjan Poklukar visited the municipalities of Ribnica and Kočevje, where he learned about the events of recent weeks. He promised an increased police presence in areas where the situation is expected to worsen due to “some Roma”.
According to the mayor of Ribnica, Slovenia, there are people who were indicted 17 times but are still at large. This is bad, but what is worse, is that the mayor and the article speaks of Romani crime.
The former leader of the Slovenian Communist Party, Milan Kučan said about the Roma “problem”: “I don’t take a particularly dramatic view of this, but above all I think it is inadmissible that, through repression, people are now trying to make the whole Roma community guilty of the incidents of individuals.” He opposes the proposed creation of village guards in the regions with Roma settlements.
Following the attack by Roma on policemen trying to arrest two juveniles, the Slovenian police reacted. The Police Union of Slovenia warned of the deterioration of the security situation in some areas of the country. The Ministry of the Interior and the police strongly condemn any violence and attack on police officers, who must be dealt with and punished accordingly. They are actively solving the challenges regarding the Roma community and they believe that in the dialogue between the local community, the state and the Roma population, they will make important steps towards improvement, they stated in response to the union appeal.
An attack by the “citizens of Kočevje on the police” made the news in Slovenia. When pursuing the underage drivers who did not want to surrender, they encountered a “group of people” who then tried to prevent the arrest by hitting, pushing and threatening the police.
Robert Tomazin, a “real” citizen of Kočevje, warned that this is grossly distorted reporting that does not say anything about the real attackers. He wrote on his Facebook profile that it is a distorted report that casts a bad light on the other citizens of Kočevje, while the real perpetrators were members of the Roma community.
Bad in every sense.
For the first time in the history of Slovakia, the court ruled that the police acted in a discriminatory manner during the intervention in the Roma settlement. It happened more than nine years ago in the village of Vrbnica near Michalovce. Fifteen Roma ended up in hospital after police intervention. T
he Ministry of the Interior appealed against the court’s verdict.
The cause of the riot in Leeds was the removal of children by Social Services and Police from a family in Leeds.
Watch, this is dreadful.
Police forces are raiding the Roma settlement of Lokve in Črnomelj, Slovenia, searching for weapons and drugs. Apparently, this was prompted by a spate of shootings in the last 6 months.
The infamous police raid in Moldov nad Bodvou, where Roma were beaten by the police, and then condemned for defamation against the very same police, is coming to an end, more than 9 years after the facts. Slovakia was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights, and now has settled compensations for the victims of police violence.
But .. they did not acknowledge any wrongdoing. This is bad.
Klaudia Wioletta, an academic, and not a whistleblower learned that the Norwegian police had created a register of Roma, a national minority in Norway, and had no choice but to subject it to public and legal scrutiny.
She first came across the Norwegian Roma “family tree” compiled by police officers during a meeting she was invited to on crime prevention activities in Oslo in the fall of 2023. The police officers wanted to expand their knowledge about Roma and invited her because in her research she dealt with issues related to Roma. She photographed the “family tree” and, suspecting that there was a register behind the graphics, accepted the invitation to another meeting with the policemen who presented it.
Her suspicions were right. During the next meeting, the officer showed her the log on his computer and explained how he created it. The register includes 14 people who have been charged in ongoing criminal cases, 74 are their close relatives and 567 other people. The register even includes Holocaust survivors, deceased persons, and Roma children.
Journalist Ingrid Müller-Münch will speak about “Deadly police violence against Sinti and Roma” between 1945 and 1980 on Thursday, March 21st, at 6 p.m. as part of the International Weeks Against Racism in the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg.
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