MINELRES: ERRC Sues Denmark Regarding Forced Expulsions of Kosovo Roma

[European Roma Rights Center]

European Roma Rights Center Legal Action Concerning Expulsion of Roma
from Denmark

May 9, 2003

The European Roma Rights Center today filed an urgent request to the
European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to stop Denmark from
implementing measures to expel a Kosovo Romani family, including three
minor children, back to Kosovo. The applicants fled their home in
Prizren, Kosovo in August 1999, following physical attacks by members of
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in their home, who accused them of
having assisted the Serbs in the �ethnic cleansing� of Kosovo Albanians. 
The family made an attempt in May 2001 to return to Kosovo, but were forced 
to flee again by stone-throwing neighbors. They applied for refugee status 
in Denmark.

The family�s request for refugee status was rejected by the Danish
Refugee Board on April 14, 2003. On that same date, their attorney
filed an application for permission to stay on humanitarian grounds. As
of May 9, 2003, that application was still pending. Despite this, the
Danish police on April 29, 2003, sent a letter giving the applicants to
May 15 to �voluntarily� leave the country and receive financial
assistance or face forced expulsion and possible detention. ERRC has
received credible reports that numerous refugees from the former
Yugoslavia received the same letter from the Danish police, despite
extensive evidence of the life-threatening situation faced by many
Kosovo Romani returnees. The application alleges that tens of thousands
of displaced Roma currently live in conditions of utter destitution and
extreme poverty in the rest of Serbia and Montenegro, frequently
squatting in extremely substandard conditions under bridges or elsewhere
in the open because such arrangements are apparently preferable to a
return to Kosovo.

The Strasbourg application relies on Article 3 of the European
Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman and
degrading treatment and argues that the forced return of this family to
Kosovo would subject them to violence, a lack of adequate housing,
medical care and employment opportunities, and abject poverty. It cites
numerous alarming reports prepared by international human rights
organizations, including a recent April 2003 report prepared by Amnesty
International documenting numerous disappearances and abduction, attacks
and threats directed against Roma returnees in Kosovo as well as severe
denial of freedom of movement and access to health care. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in a January 2003 report stated,
�Members of non-ethnic Albanian minorities originating from Kosovo
continue to face security threats, which place their lives and
fundamental freedoms at risk. [�] Significantly, security threats can be
severe (grenade attacks, physical assault) among the Roma [�] throughout
Kosovo.�

Commenting on the threatened expulsion, ERRC Legal Director Gloria Jean
Garland said: "Denmark has in the past year become a leader among those
European states seeking to expel foreigners or otherwise exert pressure
on such persons to leave Denmark, regardless of the conditions such
persons may face upon return to their country-of-origin. Danish policies
in this area call seriously into question the government's commitment to
upholding international human rights standards."

Further information on the situation of Roma in Kosovo is available on:
http://errc.org/publications/indices/kosovo.shtml. Further information
on restrictive policies concerning Romani migrants and refugees in
European Union countries are available on:
http://errc.org/rr_nr2_2002/index.shtml.


_____________________________________________

The European Roma Rights Center is an international public interest law
organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and provides legal defence
in cases of human rights abuse. For more information about the European
Roma Rights Center, visit the ERRC on the web at http://www.errc.org.

European Roma Rights Center
1386 Budapest 62
P.O. Box 906/93
Hungary


Phone: +36 1 4132200
Fax:   +36 1 4132201

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