Roma in Bulgaria are pushing back against discrimination with several legal actions.
Good!
News in France are dominated with the relocation of Roma in one neighbourhood of Nantes. Locals are fighting against this, and Roma who are being expelled of one camp went to court, claiming that the expulsions are illegal. In brief, chaos.
Other than that, an article about the forgotten (in France) genocide of the Roma.
In early July, three Roma brutally beat-up a 72-year-old farmer Anton Čemažar in a field on the outskirts of Ljubljana. This caused a great deal of controversy. Now, the farmer and his family have suffered their first disappointment: the Ljubljana District Court has rejected a request to investigate a fourth person involved, who led the attackers to Čemažar’s field and drove them away after the violent act, in a vehicle without license plates. The investigating judge and the pre-trial panel believe that the driver did not know what was really happening, but was merely taking the perpetrators fishing, so there is no reasonable suspicion of his complicity.
This is the law, but here the result is that in Slovenia, they say that Roma are not subject to it. Bad.
This is a never-ending story. 12 years ago, Roma were beaten up by the police in Moldova nad Bodvou. The Roma sued and found themselves accused of false testimony and condemned. They appealed and finally, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Slovakia in 2020.
They case against the police was reopened but assigned to the very same prosecutor who condemned the Roma. Now, finally, a new investigator has been assigned to the case.
The Gera Regional Court will not open a trial against controversial administrative judge Bengt Fuchs. The public prosecutor’s office had accused him of incitement to hatred.
In August 2019, Fuchs allegedly wrote a comment under a Facebook post in a student fraternity group that was deemed incitement to hatred. Fuchs allegedly equated the Sinti and Roma ethnic groups with traveling gangs of thieves. In the group, the user “Bengt-Christian Fuchs” had described the group as “rotational Europeans with a weakness in property attribution.”
If this is not racist, what is?
The police have closed the investigation into the case of racist Czech political extremist party SPD posters from last year’s election campaign, in which the chairman of this opposition movement, MP Tomio Okamura, and the SPD as a legal entity are accused. The Novinky server wrote on Thursday evening that criminal investigators are now waiting for the party’s new representative to familiarize themselves with the investigation file. The police are accusing Okamura and the SPD of inciting hatred, which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.
The trial of Arsen and Leonard Novak began at the Kočevje District Court on Monday. They are accused of attacking Ribnica mayor Samo Pogorelc on June 8 with a minor, against whom separate proceedings are being conducted, closed to the public. Arsen Novak is also accused of attacking the mayor’s then-partner, Delo reports.
The affair made the headlines in Slovenia. What this omits to say, the attack occurred after the mayor threatened to cut Roma access to municipal services unless they “behaved”…
Many articles this week in France. Most were devoted to the acquittal of the mayor of Villeron, near Paris and of 5 of the residents of that town for having voluntarily chased away Roma from a camp and destroyed their housing two years ago. The mayor clamours he is not a racist, well, that can be discussed, and one Romani organisation is considering an appeal to that decision. The other news with several articles is a fire in a Roma camp near Paris in Ris-Orangis. Other news are the usual ones: In Western France, how to distribute the “effort” among communes, i.e. how to apportion Roma to different towns; and the story of a landowner whose land has been occupied by Roma.
According to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the rights of two complainants, a Roma father and son, were violated after they became victims of violent intervention by the police during the first lockdown in April 2020 in Bardejov. The court found that the use of force by the police, leading to injuries such as a skull fracture in one applicant and a concussion in the other, was manifestly disproportionate and the investigation into the police violence was inadequate. TASR was informed about this by the spokesman for the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), Jonathan Lee. The ERRC represented the applicants.
An analysis published by the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Roma Communities (ÚSVRK) of the Slovak Republic shaw that Roma, while having been facing discrimination in Slovakia in education, healthcare, work and housing for a long time make little use of the existing anti-discrimination laws. Miriam Žiaková, Director of the Media Department of the ÚSVRK said that: “Despite the fact that the existing anti-discrimination law provides them with formal protection, a large part of Roma do not exercise their rights, even in cases where they are directly exposed to discriminatory treatment.”
Three perpetrators of the brutal attack on a Roma camp in Lviv in 2018 were sentenced to prison after seven years. The Sychov District Court sent two attackers to ten years in prison, the main organizer received a sentence of ten years and 6 months. The verdict is not yet final. The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) reports.
The beggars who challenged the law forbidding begging in the canton of Vaud have lost their appeal. The Constitutional Court rejected the petition of nine plaintiffs, including four Roma, a homeless person, and a pastor. Their fundamental rights were not be violated.
Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar has been slowly replacing judges nominated by the previous government against the law. Most notable case, is the one of the President of the District Court in Bielsko-Biała Adam Kanafka. He became famous for issuing a ruling in which he repeated racist stereotypes towards Roma.
The European Court of Human Rights found that the demolition of a Roma settlement in 2015 by the city of Wrocław violated the European Convention on Human Rights. A complaint against the Polish authorities was filed by Roma, citizens of Romania.
On July 22, 2015, the city of Wrocław liquidated the Roma settlement on Paprotna Street. At the time of the demolition, the settlement consisted of five buildings. The families (adults and children) had been living in the settlement since 2009. The complaint to the ECtHR was filed in early 2016.
The mayor and several residents of Villeron, near Paris, will be judged in June for their attack and destruction of a Roma camp in their commune. The League for Human Rights (LHR) wrote an open letter to a mayor near Paris who has expulsed Roma from his commune in spite of the “obstruction” of the LHR. Near Paris, a camp has been closed, and finally, near Nantes in Western France, the authorities and NGO are looking on how to closed another.
Quite a few articles this week in France about Roma. First, the mayor and five inhabitants from Volleron, near Paris, had to appear in front of a judge, being accused of destruction of property and racist violence. They had violently dispersed a Roma camp two years ago. We have omitted another article on the subject, as this was clearly biased.
Several articles about the evacuation of a Roma camp in Verneuil, and of another one in Persan, both near Paris. An upcoming debate on the movie “A bras Ouverts”, a movie that panders to racist stereotypes about Roma. Finally, in Nantes in Western France, the arrestation of 6 Roma teenagers who apparently are behind the burglaries of around 15 pharmacies in the region.
The Polish Minister of Justice, Adam Bodnar, has initiated the procedure for the dismissal of Adam Kanafek from the position of president of the District Court in Bielsko-Biała.
Adam Kanafek, signed letters of support for the neo-KRS, and attacked the Roma community in Poland. Years ago, he dismissed a case involving a racist post on the Internet about them. In the justification for the dismissal, he wrote, among other things, “It is no secret that the way of life of the Roma is controversial and often meets with social disapproval. The accused criticized inappropriate behaviour, in particular concerning evading the accepted rules of earning a living.”
As RTL unofficially learns, another criminal complaint has been filed against MP Veljko Kajtazi. After the one due to violence where he is accused of having hit a woman, now we are talking about financial embezzlement, and that is related to a large Roma centre that is under construction.
Bad.
The district court in Karviná released Jaromír Lukeš on parole, convicted of an arson attack on Roma in Vítkov in 2009. Lukeš was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his attack with accomplices on a Roma house in Vítkov.
The Minister of Justice, Andreja Katič, believes that a change in legislation is not necessary directly because of the Roma issue. Several legislative changes and innovations are being prepared, including the law on juvenile offenders and changes to criminal legislation, she said after a meeting with the Minister of the Interior, Boštjan Poklukar.
EN 
DE 
FR