Amnesty International: Roma Still Discriminated In Romania, Including By Govt Officials

Romania's minister of foreign affairs, Teodor Baconschi, spoke about "links between criminality and the Romani community" and referred to a "natural" rate of delinquency among Roma. In November, during his visit to Slovenia, the President, Traian Basescu, also referred to Roma as "delinquents" and spoke of them as "difficult to integrate" and "unwilling to work", Amnesty said in the report.

Amnesty also notes in its report the bill, rejected in Parliament, proposing to change the official name of Roma as a minority to "Ţigan". NGOs protested, given that the name "Ţigan" has pejorative connotations and stigmatizes the community.

"In terms of wider society, an opinion poll on the public perception of Roma carried out by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy in October showed that 67% of Romanians would not accept a member of the Romani community in their family," the report notes.

The report also notes the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in August 2010 raised concerns that Roma continued to be victims of racial stereotyping and discrimination in access to quality education, housing, health care services and employment. Romania was criticized for a failure to adopt legislation required to turn previous commitments with regard to the situation of Roma into practice.

In a response to complaints against segregation of Romani pupils in schools, the Ministry of Education issued an internal guideline in March, which targeted school inspectorates, kindergartens, school principals and teachers and imposed a set of rules for the prevention and elimination of segregation of Romani pupils in the educational system, Amnesty International noted.

The report also mentioned a court decision issued in May by the Court of Appeal in Craiova, which upheld the decision of the lower court that a Romani pupil had faced discrimination from her teacher and raised damages of EUR10.000.

The report also noted housing rights issues Romas have faced, including unlawful expropriation and forced evictions without offering alternative accommodation. "Approximately 75 Roma, including families with children, who had been forcibly evicted by the local authorities in Miercurea Ciuc in 2004, continued to live in metal mobile cabins next to a sewage treatment plant on the outskirts of the town," the report noted.

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