MINELRES: ERRC: Anti-Romani Developments in Italy Highlighted in a Report Launched by NGOs at the OSCE Meeting on Sustainable Roma Policy
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Sat Jul 26 09:57:04 2008
Original sender: European Roma Rights Centre <[email protected]>
International NGO Coalition Report Outlines Extreme Deterioration of
Roma Rights in Italy
10 July 2008, Budapest, Bucharest, Geneva, Vienna: Today, a coalition of
NGOs launched a report on the deterioration of the human rights
situation of Roma and Sinti in Italy, on the occasion of the OSCE’s
Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Sustainable Policies for Roma
and Sinti Integration in Vienna. Coalition members include the European
Roma Rights Centre, the Open Society Institute, the Centre on Housing
Rights and Evictions, Romani Criss and the Roma Civic Alliance of
Romania.
The report, entitled “Security a la Italiana: Fingerprinting, Extreme
Violence and Harassment of Roma in Italy”, includes a concise summary of
a series of discriminatory legal and policy measures targeting Roma
recently enacted by the right-wing Italian government, in place since
the April 2008 elections. The report also includes the results of
first-hand documentation conducted by the Coalition in Romani camps
Italy at the end of May 2008, exploring the effects of these measures on
members of Italy’s Roma and Sinti communities, including:
Illegal fingerprinting and photographing of Roma for the purposes of
creating a database of all Roma in the country;
Police abuse, ill-treatment and forced evictions of Roma;
Extreme violence by non-state actors and the failure of Italian
authorities to prosecute the perpetrators; and
Other forms of discrimination against Roma.
The report concludes with a series of recommendations for actions to be
undertaken by the Italian government, the Romanian government and
inter-governmental actors, in order to end the ongoing human rights
crisis in Italy and ensure respect for the rights of Roma in the
country.
During the OSCE meeting in Vienna on 10-11 July, Coalition members are
hosting a side event to discuss the concerns outlined in the report and
are organising a protest outside the site of the OSCE meeting on 11
July, starting from the premises of the Fundamental Rights Agency,
Rahlgasse, Gumpendorferstra?e, Burgring and Heldenplatz – stopping in
front of the Hofburg Palace.
The full text of the report is available on the ERRC’s website at:
http://www.errc.org/db/03/21/m00000321.pdf.
For further information, please contact:
* Tara Bedard, ERRC Programmes Coordinator, [email protected]
* Isabela Mihalache, OSI Senior Projects Manager,
[email protected]
* Claude Cahn, COHRE Head of Advocacy, [email protected]
* Magda Matache, Romani Criss, [email protected]
* Iulian Stoian, Roma Civic Alliance of Romania, [email protected]
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The European Roma Rights Centre is an international public interest law
organisation which monitors the human rights situation of Roma and
provides legal defence in cases of human rights abuse. For more
information about the European Roma Rights Centre, visit the ERRC on the
web at http://www.errc.org
To support the ERRC, please visit this link:
http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2735
European Roma Rights Centre
1386 Budapest 62
P.O. Box 906/93
Hungary
Tel: +36.1.413.2200
Fax:
+36.1.413.2201
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