Racial preference, racial exclusion: Administrative efforts to enforce the separation of Roma and non-Roma in Europe through migration controls

European Journal of Migration and Law

Volumn 5, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 479-490

  Cahn, Claude ^a  

^a European Roma Rights Center (ERRC)   (Italy)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 2642544052     PISSN: 1388364X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157181603322849361     Document Type: Review

References (32)

1. On efforts in Germany to address the legacy of the Holocaust, see in particular Michael Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, and Ernestine Schlant, The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust, London: Routledge, 1999.
2. On efforts in Germany to address the legacy of the Holocaust, see in particular Michael Brenner, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, and Ernestine Schlant, The Language of Silence: West German Literature and the Holocaust, London: Routledge, 1999.
3. An employee of the UN administration in Kosovo working on the issue of returns to Kosovo told the author that during a meeting with German officials, one of them stated that Roma had to be expelled from Germany because 'Germans would never accept them'.
4. On human rights issues related to Roma and anti-Romani sentiment in Germany, see Open Society Institute, Monitoring the EU Accession Process: Minority Protection Volume II, Case Studies in Selected Member States, Budapest: Open Society Institute, pp. 141-224.
5. It is not immediately apparent that German authorities are correct. The expulsion of individuals factually settled long-term in a given country gives rise to Article 3 (prohibition on cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) and Article 8 (right to privacy and family life) concerns under the European Convention on Human Rights. The collective expulsion of aliens is further banned under Article 4 of Protocol 4 to the European Convention. Insofar as four out of every five Yugoslav citizens slated for expulsion from Germany are Romani, despite the fact that Roma comprise not more than 8% of the general population of Serbia and Montenegro, the German expulsions give rise to the concern that racial discrimination has significantly infected expulsion and other procedures at issue, in contravention of a number of binding international law obligations to which Germany is a party, including but not limited to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the European Convention on Human Rights. Such expulsions are also inconsistent with Germany's OSCE commitments. At the 1999 Istanbul Summit, the OSCE Heads of State declared that: 'We deplore violence and other manifestations of racism and discrimination against minorities, including Roma and Sinti. We commit ourselves to ensure that laws and policies fully respect the rights of Roma and Sinti and, where necessary, to promote anti-discrimination legislation to this effect.' In addition, in the Charter for European Security adopted at the same Istanbul Summit the OSCE participating States declared: 'We recognise the particular difficulties faced by Roma and Sinti and the need to undertake effective measures in order to achieve full equality of opportunity, consistent with OSCE commitments, for persons belonging to Roma and Sinti. We will enforce our efforts to ensure that Roma and Sinti are able to play a full and equal part in our societies, and to eradicate discrimination against them.' In the 1992 Helsinki Document the CSCE participating States 'express[ed] their concern over recent and flagrant manifestations of intolerance, discrimination, aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and racism'.
6. See presentation by Nicholas Bell of the European Civic Forum at joint session of the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 'clandestine migration', 10 March 2002.
7. See Sandra Lavenex, Safe Third Countries: Extending the EU Asylum and Immigration Policies to Central and Eastern Europe, Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999.
8. See Crete Brochmann, "The Mechanisms of Control", in: Grete Brochmann & Tomas Hammar (eds.), Mechanisms of Immigration Control: A Comparative Analysis of European Regulation Policies, Oxford-New York: Berg Books, 1999, pp. 1-28.
9. For details of the Berisha case, see: 〈www.errc.org/publications/ letters/2003/macedonia_sept_19_2003.shtml〉.
10. Research into 'anti-Gypsyism' is presently perhaps best developed in Germany. For some English-language articles on the issue, see especially Susan Tebbutt (ed.), Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-Speaking Society and Literature, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998.
11. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ten out of the twenty regions in Italy adopted laws aimed at the 'protection of nomadic cultures' through the construction of segregated camps. Regional Law 299/89 of Lombardy, for instance, was entitled "Regional Action for the Protection of Populations with Nomadic or Semi-Nomadic Traditions". A similar 1994 law in the Marche region is "Interventions in Favour of Migrants, Immigrants, Refugees, Stateless Persons, Nomads and Their Families". In 1991, a circular to local police directorates on "Nomadic Settlements, Gypsies and Non-European Citizens", with the signature of the Head Prefect of the Ministry of the Interior, began by reminding the police of 'the age-old problem of nomadic people'. The circular went on to describe 'the difficulties of full integration' and then ordered 'a deep and systematic survey of the major nomadic, Gypsy and non-European settlements' in Italy. It ended by requesting that a full report on each province be sent to the anti-crime division of the Central Police Office (See Circolare No. 4/91 N. 559/443123/A-200420/1 6/2/1/1, January 18, 1991). The government funds predominantly non-Romani organisations to act as go-betweens for the government and Roma. First and foremost among such organisations is 'Opera Nomadi' ('Nomad Works' or 'Charitable Mission for Nomads'), founded by a priest named Don Bruno Niccolini; the organisation has now for the most part lost its religious character, but has kept its name and its authority in the eyes of the government. For further details of Italian policies related to Roma, see European Roma Rights Center, Campland: Racial Segregation of Roma in Italy, Country Reports Series No. 9, October 2000.
12. In some Western Countries, such as France, Netherlands and the UK, Roma comprise a significant part of itinerants, although not all Roma are itinerant in practice.
13. For a useful summary of 'Traveller policy' in the UK, see Rachel Morris & Luke Clements, At What Cost: The Economics of Gypsy and Traveller Encampments, Bristol: The Policy Press, 2002, pp. 11-28.
14. See European Roma Rights Center and Greek Helsinki Monitor, Cleaning Operations: Excluding Roma in Greece, Country Reports Series No. 12, April 2003.
15. For details of the ruling, see: 〈http://www.errc.org/publications/ letters/2003/montenegrojan_22_ 2003.shtml〉.
16. For details of the legal action in connection with Croatian schools, see: Branimir Plese, "Racial Segregation in Croatian Primary Schools: Romani Students Take Legal Action", in Roma Rights 3 and 4/2002, on the Internet at: 〈http://errc.org/rr_nr3-4_2002/legal_defence.shtml〉. On the Czech case, see: 〈http://www.errc.org/publications/letters/2000/cz_april_18_2000. shtml〉.
17. For details of the legal action in connection with Croatian schools, see: Branimir Plese, "Racial Segregation in Croatian Primary Schools: Romani Students Take Legal Action", in Roma Rights 3 and 4/2002, on the Internet at: 〈http://errc.org/rr_nr3-4_2002/legal_defence.shtml〉. On the Czech case, see: 〈http://www.errc.org/publications/letters/2000/cz_april_18_2000. shtml〉.
18. See Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, reedited, Geneva, 1992 (hereinafter UNHCR Handbook).
19. In a recent case, a Romani man from Poland was refused asylum in Britain on grounds that his testimony had been inconsistent and was therefore implausible. The inconsistency lay in the fact that during an initial interview, he told asylum authorities in Britain that racist skinheads in Poland had threatened to 'kill him slowly, like Hitler', whereas during a subsequent interview, he stated that they had threatened to 'kill him, like Hitler.' His failure on the second occasion to qualify the killing with the adverb 'slowly' was deemed to render his testimony as a whole implausible and therefore his claim to refugee status was ruled 'unfounded'.
20. Deborah Winterbourne, "Love Thy Neighbour", Roma Rights 1/1999, p. 69.
21. For details of the Belgian case, see Claude Cahn & Peter Vermeersch, "The Group Expulsion of Slovak Roma by the Belgian Government: A Case Study of the Treatment of Romani Refugees in Western Countries", in Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Volume XIII/2, pp. 71-82.
22. To cite only one example, throughout 2002 and into early 2003, a group of Roma lived at the Otopeni airport in Bucharest after Germany expelled them prior to the completion of appeals for asylum on the basis of the fact that they were stateless. Upon arrival at the airport in Bucharest, they refused to accept Romanian citizenship, as was their right, or to enter Romania, nor could they manage to get to Germany to hearings in their appeals for asylum. They therefore lived for months in the 'international zone' of the airport.
23. The United Kingdom has, for example, repeatedly expelled groups of Roma from the Czech Republic to the Czech Republic because, in the words of a letter from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to Czech Prime Minister Vlaidimir Spidla, 'There are no grounds for Czech citizens to seek protection abroad' (the letter is reprinted in full in Eva Sobotka, "Romani Migration in the 1990s: Perspectives on the Dynamic, Interpretation and Policy", in Romani Studies, forthcoming). In so contending, Prime Minister Blair disregards widely available information such as the fact that the Czech school system segregates, as a matter of policy and practice, Romani children in schools for the mentally disabled, as well as the fact that the Czech judiciary has systematically failed to provide adequate remedy to the now very many Romani victims of racist skinhead violence in the Czech Republic or, in the numerous cases in which the victim did not survive the attack - to their families.
24. In the case of the European Union, this practice is of particular note, since the application of 'safe country of origin lists' has been ruled illegal in at least one current European Union Member State: The Belgian Constitutional Court struck down the practice on 19 March 1993.
25. Race Relations Act 1976, Section 19D Ministerial Authorisation, "Discrimination on Ground of National or Ethnic Origin", 23 April 2001.
26. Čonka v. Belgium, Judgment, 5 February 2002.
27. Sulejmanovic and others, and Sejdovic and Sulejmanovic v. Italy, Judgment, 8 November 2002.
28. See Garland, Gloria Jean, "Case Note: Čonka v. Belgium - Inroads into Fortress Europe?", Roma Right 2/2002, pp. 30-31.
29. On European Union citizenship, see Elspeth Guild, "The Legal Framework of Citizenship in the European Union", in David Cesarani & Mary Fulbrook, eds., Citizenship, Nationality and Migration in Europe. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.
30. See: 〈http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/docs/pd/ broehure_roma_may2002.pdf〉.
31. European Convention on Human Rights Article 14 - the existing provision banning discrimination under the European Convention - extends only to rights secured under the Convention.
32. See 〈http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=http%3A%2F%2Fassembly. coe.int%2Fdocuments%2FworkingDocs%2FDoc03%2FEDOC9727.htm〉.