A reportage on Roma patrols, a project funded in part by the EU which sees Roma patrolling their neighbourhoods.
The project “Improving coordination and dialogue between the police and the Roma community”, financed under the “Internal Works” Program of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, is equipping and renovating police reception centres in Roma neighborhoods in Varna.
They are part of a total of 20 reception centres in Roma neighborhoods in oBulgaria – in Sofia, Burgas, Varna, Pazardzhik, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Vidin, Montana, Sliven and Yambol. The renovated reception areas will create better working conditions for police officers and be a point of contact for local communities when problems arise.
Hungary is increasing the stipends of Roma students studying for becoming policemen. That many Roma want to be members of the Hungarian police can be doubted, and anyhow, the stipends are ridiculous. Around 10’000 HUF for an average grade student. Per month. This amounts to 25 euros per months. And with the current inflation …
A fight between two Roma families was allegedly prevented by the intervention of the police forces. The attack was supposed to take place in the “Kaltinets” district of Gorno-Oryahov, the press center of the Regional Directorate of the Police in Veliko Tarnovo announced.
Another case of the Roma “problem” in Slovenia. In this case, the difficult cohabitation of Roma and locals in the town of Šentjernej. The people there apparently no longer feel safe in their municipality, the situation is getting worse, and their trust in state authorities to improve things is decreasing. Apparently, insecurity is indeed increasing.
When a Rom complains about police’s actions, the truth is difficult to uncover. In Slovakia, the police need not fear any punishment, according to Amnesty International director Rado Sloboda.
He went to a regular work dinner but ended up in handcuffs at the police station. He claims that they pressed his head against a table, beat him and kicked him. Roma activist Zoltán Sztojka draws attention to an incident at the regional police department in Trnávka, Bratislava, where, according to his own words, he was beaten. He talks about slaps, kicks and racist insults.
Not a good thing: In Chemnitz, two Roma families are making headlines for noise, insults, garbage, and in addition they are suspected of shoplifting. Whether true or not, the mere fact that such articles pop up is bad.
A third young Rom was killed by the police in Athens after a police chase. According to the police, the gun went off when the young Rom tried to grab a pistol from the police.
He is the third young Roma killed by the police in Greece in as many years.
Stanislav Tomáš, who died two years ago in the summer after an intervention by the police, has a new tombstone at the Teplice cemetery. The police was exonerated, a conclusion that many did not accept. On his tomb, there is simply the word “Pativ”, here standing for respect.
Unfortunately, another one of those (on both sides). Roma were arrested in Kharkiv region in Ukraine for having swindled pensioneers. They were arrested and will be tried.
The issue as usual is that this is depicted as an ethnic trait.
Bad.
A lecture by a federal police officer at the federal government’s open day in Berlin last weekend sparked sharp criticism from the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma and the religious policy spokesman for the Green parliamentary group, Volker Beck.
According to the Central Council and Beck, the representative of the Berlin Directorate of the Federal Police gave a public lecture in the Federal Ministry of the Interior entitled “Beware of thieves! How pickpockets use tricks and how you can successfully ruin their criminal journey.” In it, Roma are said to have been generally referred to as “large criminal families” organized into “criminal clans” that move through Europe. Other ethnic groups were also racially discriminated against: each ethnic group, North African or Polish, had “its own criminal methods”.
The police do not officially keep statistics on crime committed by Roma, but the police can say that in municipalities with a large number of Roma, they cause up to 90 percent of all crime.
In Ivančna Gorica, the situation is so serious that the locals decided to organize the so-called village guards.
Roma gathered today in Gračanica, Kosovo, at a protest organized by the Association of Roma in Kosovo “Opre Roma”, due to the beating of a Rom by the Kosovo Police.
The Green politician Renate Künast’s move to stop using the term “clan criminality” by the North Rhine-Westphalia, a term that was heavily criticised by Roma organisations was rejected. NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) told the “Bild” (Saturday edition): “You have to name problems if you want to solve them. Out of sheer fear of stigmatization, clan criminality was ignored for 30 years. We have to spoon up the soup now”.
Lawyers of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the Forum for Human Rights (FORUM) filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the Czech Republic over the death of Roma Stanislav Tomáš during a police intervention in Teplice in 2021. The Czech Constitutional Court rejected a complaint by the organization in April 2023. The case before the court is being conducted on behalf of the surviving family member of the deceased Roma.
Sinti from Osnabrück, Germany are asking for explanations following a search in a Sinti camp in the city. The police far exceeded the scope of the search warrant they had.
Last week, the German police raided a Sinti camp in Osnabrück, on the suspicion that a condemned criminal was there. So far, no issue. But then they searched every one in the camp, which is an issue, as this went way beyond their warrant.
Several articles criticising the police report on clan criminality from Lower Saxony as being racist and based against Sinti and Roma.
The story of a police Razzia in a Sinti camp in Osnabrück, Germany. The police went too far, unfortunately not an exception. They had an arrest warrant for one person, and took the opportunity to search all…
:format(webp)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/madsack/KQ6AT32QLVFW3PYPWTAOAVHZPI.jpg?w=266&resize=266,200&ssl=1 "Lower Saxony, the Police, and Minorities")
At the end of June, the Ministry of the Interior and Justice in Hanover presented the “Clan Crime Situation Report 2022”. The Central Council of Sinti and Roma is now criticizing the police stigmatization of minorities and is calling for investigations into racist discrimination to be stopped.
Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council, stated that the report is a “continuation of the racist and antiziganist recording”, which is being continued despite the painful history of this minority and despite the ban in the constitution.
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