Sunday, October 2, 2011

Stand By Them


This will be my last post on this subject for a while. Boyko Borissov predicted that the subject will be be used as a political football for the Presidential elections and I have no wish to contribute to that particular circus.

The comments expressed on this blog are personal. I try to research when I can but my resources are limited. I have used information from Amnesty International and the Bulgaria Helsinki Committee. Regrettably, there are no reputable English language local media sources on this subject which don't reflect similar racial prejudices to those we have seen this week.

I have also used Wikipedia for some historical perpectives and I include the links below. Some of the material is eye watering. Finally, I am also attaching a link to an Amnesty International Report on the Violations of the rights of Roma in Europe published last year. It makes depressing reading.  I also outline below the main extracts which mention Bulgaria. I have to say that the situation in Bulgaria, bad as it is, pails when you read what is happening in other countries. There is no appetite for change here (at least no progressive appetite). It seems little will be done.

Bulgarians deeply resent, what they feel is, an anti-Bulgarian bias abroad. At times they are right to do so.  Notwithstanding that, it is to external help that the Roma look for support because there is very little here. It is to be hoped that the EU community does not lose sight of its 20 million Roma citizens and that it keeps a watchful eye on developments in the coming months and years. And if that is xenophobically seen as interference in Bulgarian affairs, so be it.

Amnesty International Report Main Points:
  • A detailed survey of 402 working aged Roma men and women carried out by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in 2006 in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia found that only 38 per cent were in paid employment; almost two thirds reported that they had been refused employment because they were Roma. 
  • Victims of forced evictions can lose their possessions, social contacts, jobs and have their schooling disrupted and are often at risk of further human rights violations. They also often end up homeless. Amnesty International has documented forced evictions in Greece, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia. 
  • In 2008, the European Committee of Social Rights (the Committee) found Bulgaria in violation of Articles 11 and 13 of the European Social Charter (the Charter), which guarantee the right to protection of health, for failing to provide adequate medical assistance to Roma. 
  • A study published in 2007 by the Open Society Institute found that in Romania and Bulgaria 15 per cent of Romani children never enrol in the education system, while drop-out rates for Roma are four to six times higher than the national average. 
  • In its most recent report on Bulgaria, adopted in February 2009, for instance, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) concluded: “A long-term strategy for the school integration of Roma children has yet to be devised, however, and the authorities should take the initiative more often when it comes to school integration measures for these children, given that such measures often seem to be taken by NGOs. It appears that the impact of the numerous programmes and action plans …….. drawn up, among other things, to improve the schooling of Roma children has yet to be seen.” 
  • The most egregious form of discrimination manifests itself in the segregation of Roma in schools and classes offering inferior education. This violation of the right to education of Roma continues to be widespread in central and eastern Europe. ECRI has expressed concerns about the segregation of Roma in education in its most recent reports on Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Slovenia and Macedonia. 
  • Ethnic profiling by law-enforcement officials is the practice of targeting individuals or groups for police operations solely on account of their ethnicity. As a form of differential treatment with no objective justification, ethnic profiling constitutes discrimination and is a human rights violation, but it has not been expressly outlawed in any European country. Research carried out by the Open Society Institute in Hungary and Bulgaria in 2005 found that Roma pedestrians in both countries were three times more likely to be stopped by police than majority ethnic Bulgarians and Hungarians despite the fact that Roma constitute only 5 to 10 per cent of Bulgaria’s population and 6 per cent of Hungary’s population.

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