Tag Archives: Justice

Hungary News Eastern Europe

Legal Aid

Published by:

Legal Aid

The Hungarian National Roma Self-Government (MROÖ) has launched a legal aid and information network to support Roma communities, with initial offices in Budapest, Miskolc, and Pécs. MROÖ President Dancs Mihály emphasized the importance of providing legal assistance to Roma individuals facing discrimination and legal issues, marking the initiative as a significant milestone.

The initiative aims to address historical injustices and ensure that Roma communities are not left without support in legal matters, with funding coming from Dancs’s own salary and expenses.

One has to note that this is in parallel to the European Roma Right Centre, located in Budapest, which has been active for decades.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria and Roma

Published by:

Bulgaria and Roma

Bulgarian Justice Minister Nikolai Naydenov presented the government’s commitment to protecting vulnerable groups’ rights to Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, during his visit to Sofia.

Key topics discussed included the rights of elderly individuals in institutions and the rights of Roma people regarding the removal of illegal structures that serve as their homes, in line with European Court of Human Rights practices.

The Bulgarian government has implemented measures such as criminal liability for unlicensed social care homes and has made progress in legal protections against poor conditions in social institutions, as noted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Verdict

Published by:

Slovenia: Verdict

A while back, following a brawl, Aleš Šutar from Novo Mesto died after being punched once by a Rom Samire Šiljić who pleaded guilty to the attack. He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison, which led to outcries that this was totally inapropriate. The judge justified the sentence with the guilty plea and with th efact that a single blow in the face is not murder.

In response to today’s conviction, the President of the Roma Association of Slovenia, Jožek Horvat Muc, assessed that it is right that all such cases, such as the attack on Aleš Šutar from Novo Mesto, also receive a court epilogue.

Italy News Western Europe

Ferraris

Published by:

Ferraris

Two Ferraris worth over €200,000 ended up at the center of a complex scam involving changes of ownership and companies linked to the same family, apparently Sinti from the region. This is the case on which the Supreme Court ruled, upholding the seizure of one of the supercars and rejecting the appeal filed by a woman living in the Venice area.

Bulgaria Europe News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria Anti-Roma Rhetoric

Published by:

Bulgaria Anti-Roma Rhetoric

The European Court of Human Rights sided with Roma activists and journalists who argued national courts treated racist political rhetoric too narrowly while ignoring its wider impact on an entire minority community.

News Eastern Europe North Macedonia

Condemned!

Published by:

Condemned!

North Macedonia’s Commission for Prevention & Protection against Discrimination has issued a decision against Councillor Ljube Temelkov, finding that his call for Roma to be “forbidden from voting” constitutes unlawful harassment.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

ECHR Verdict

Published by:

ECHR Verdict

The police respects the decisions of international judicial authorities. In response to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), according to which the fundamental rights of two complainants were violated during the police intervention in the village of Milhosť in the Košice-okolie district in July 2019. In July 2019, the police detained two sisters in front of a family house in the village after the intervention and subsequently transported them to the police station. According to the complaint, they were subjected to physical violence, verbal insults and inappropriate treatment during their detention and stay at the police station.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Condemnation

Published by:

Condemnation

The Regional Court in Ostrava has sentenced a group of three men and one woman, who according to the indictment were led by 23-year-old Enrico Pešta, known as the Roma rapper Hard Rico. He was sentenced to four years in prison for robbery and extortion and must pay two million crowns. Two other defendants were sentenced to five years in prison, and Hard Rico’s former girlfriend was sentenced to three years in prison.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and Strasbourg

Published by:

Slovakia and Strasbourg

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Slovak women Katarína Kuruová and Helena Horváthová against the Slovak Republic ordered the Slovak Republic to pay a total of 28,560 euros. The reason is the violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights on the prohibition of torture and Article 14 on the prohibition of discrimination.

This case concerns an incident between the two applicants – two Romnja sisters – and the police, which took place on 23 July 2019. On that day, the police detained the women in the village of Milhosť in eastern Slovakia and took them to the police station in the village of Čaňa, where they remained until the early hours of the following morning. They were not questioned during their detention and, according to the ECHR judgment, were described in the detention records as a “gang of local Romani women”.

In their application, the applicants allege violence by the police, which they described as “unjustified, disproportionate and based on bias against them”. They say the investigation into the use of such force was not thorough and independent.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia Condemned

Published by:

Slovakia Condemned

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the beating of two Romani sisters by Slovak police, their detention in a toilet and cleaning cupboard, and a deeply flawed investigation violated both the prohibition on inhuman treatment (Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights) and the prohibition of discrimination (Article 14 of the Convention).

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

The Roma rapper Hard Rico

Published by:

The Roma rapper Hard Rico

The Regional Court in Ostrava heard a case involving a group of four men and one woman, allegedly led by 23-year-old Enrico Pešta, known as the Roma rapper Hard Rico. The members of the group face five to seven years in prison for robbery and extortion. Hard Rico pleaded guilty in the courtroom, the prosecutor is asking for six years in prison for him. The verdict will be handed down in April.

Bad.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Judgement

Published by:

Germany: Judgement

A blogger with around 52,000 followers posted on Twitter (now X) accusing a “large portion of the Sinti and Roma” of excluding themselves “from civilized society.” She listed accusations including welfare fraud, truancy, theft, littering, and “rental nomadism.”

The Higher Regional Court of Jena clarified that not every discriminatory statement violates human dignity. Describing Sinti and Roma as “rotating Europeans with a property-ownership disability” is grossly tasteless and defamatory—but not incitement to hatred.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

Published by:

French Chronicle …

Quite a few articles about two Romanian Roma families who were condemned for having forced their children to beg. Other than that, in Nantes, Roma are voting to try to influence their fate in that city. Finally, in central France, two Serbian and two Romanian Roma were condemned for a series of burglaries.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Condemnation

Published by:

Condemnation

At the Ljubljana District Court, two Roma, Arsen and Leonardo Novak were sentenced for attacking Ribnica mayor Samo Pogorelc and a policewoman at a firefighter’s party in Ribnica. The former was sentenced to a year and seven months in prison, the latter to a year and three months, according to media reports.

The attack occurred after the mayor had said that he would cut electricity and water to the Roma settlement unless they started to “behave”…

Hungary News Eastern Europe

Géza Buzás-Hábel

Published by:

Géza Buzás-Hábel

Géza Buzás-Hábel, a Roma and LGBT+ activist from Pecs, Hungary, has been indicted by the Hungarian justice for having organised a pride march in that city. He risks a year of jail if convicted under the laws banning so-called LGBT+ propaganda to protect the Hungarian youth.

News Eastern Europe North Macedonia

North Macedonia and Citizenship

Published by:

North Macedonia and Citizenship

The North Macedonian appeal court confirmed the condemnation of the state for failing to comply on the law of unregistered persons, a law that allowed registration of people without a birth certificate. I did discriminate against Roma, especially in the countryside.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

School Segregation

Published by:

School Segregation

Roma students from Malý Slivník, Slovakia, were segregated at school according to the court. The anti-discrimination lawsuit, which has been won, has created an issue with the so-called two shift classes (one for Roma, one for others).

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia, Police, and Roma

Published by:

Slovakia, Police, and Roma

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has allowed the Public Defender of Rights (VOP) Róbert Dobrovodský, as a third party, to enter the proceedings in the case of Miko and Jano v. Slovakia. This case concerns a police intervention in the village of Milhosť in 2023, in which, according to the findings of the Office of the Public Defender of Rights, serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, including the rights of minors, occurred.

On March 28, 2025, Róbert Dobrovodský, Public Defender of Rights, submitted an extraordinary report to the National Council of the Slovak Republic. In it, he revealed facts that indicate a violation of fundamental rights and freedoms by the actions of the Police Force.

“The case of the death of a person after the intervention of the Košice police, which shook Slovakia at the end of 2024, violence during interrogation, the case of a beaten homeless person in front of a department store, an unprovoked slap on a handcuffed person, an official intervention against Roma from Milhoste, the detention of a person with broken heels in an illegal reserved area for more than three days, the violation of the rights of a person held by the Bratislava police without proper registration for more than 12 hours, or the official intervention in March 2023 in the Police Detention Unit for Foreigners in Sečovce against foreigners,” Dobrovodský warned at the time.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia, Attack, and Justice

Published by:

Slovenia, Attack, and Justice

The mayor of Ribnica, Slovenia and his partner, are suing Roma for a sum of 156’000 Euros following the attack they were victims in June. Three Roma are standing trial there (one, a minor, is being judged behind closed doors).

This very mayor, prior to the attack, had been stating he’d cut water and other municipal services to the Roma settlement unless they “behaved”.

rroma.org
en_GBEN
de_DEDE fr_FRFR en_GBEN