Forced Migration of Roma and the Current Asylum Crisis

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Subject: Forced Migration of Roma and the Current Asylum Crisis

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Forced Migration of Roma and the Current Asylum Crisis



Forced Migration of Roma and the Current Asylum Crisis

Statement by the European Roma Rights Center on the Occasion of the
OSCE Review Conference, September 22, 1999, Vienna

The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public
interest law organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and
provides legal defence in cases of abuse, decries the widespread
denial of adequate protection to Romani refugees fleeing persecution
across borders, and calls upon the OSCE and its Participating States
immediately to take urgent measures to ensure that Roma are not
discriminated against in access to asylum, as provided for in Article
3 of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and other
binding international law.

Fifty years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, its promise of the right to seek and enjoy asylum from
persecution rings hollow for Roma. Throughout Europe, Romani victims
of systematic discrimination and racially-motivated violence are
denied effective domestic remedies, then summarily rejected when, in
fear for their lives, they seek sanctuary in a foreign country.  The
few exceptions - in which Romani applicants have been recently granted
asylum by Western governments in a small number of cases - only
underline the rule: relegated to "second class" status at home, Roma
are treated as second class refugees when forced to flee.

Forced migration - intimately linked to the daily violation of
fundamental human rights - has long been the destiny of Roma in
Europe. In recent years, as violence and discrimination against Roma
have increased, several governments have paradoxically raised the
hurdles to migration ever higher - conducting more extensive border
patrols, establishing more rigorous migration and political asylum
procedures, and promulgating stricter visa requirements. As far back
as 1993, the CSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities warned of
the dangers which "this relatively new complex of migration controls"
posed for "Roma migrants in particular:"

"If physical characteristics, as opposed to non-discriminatory means,
are used for identifying presumed migrants, then Roma may be
disproportionately targeted for migration control including
repatriation. Because of a certain distinctiveness in appearance, many
Roma including citizens and legal residents, may be attracting the
attention, suspicion and at times harassment by law enforcement and
immigration officials. Anti-Roma prejudice among some of these
officials may also be leading to arbitrary or even discriminatory
treatment during document checks, round-ups, and repatriation
procedures. Currently, there seem to be no effective means for
verifying the impartiality and propriety of such policies in action."
("Roma (Gypsies) in the CSCE Region: Report of the High Commission on
National Minorities," September 1993).

Lamentably, since 1993, conditions for Roma in countries of origin
have only deteriorated, while migrant target countries have seemingly
ignored the High Commissioner's concerns. Notwithstanding extensive
documentation of human rights violations of Roma across Europe, asylum
authorities and political leaders have simply declared Roma to be
economic migrants. Indeed, panicked by large numbers of Romani
applicants, a number of European countries have tightened their
immigration laws still further to prevent what some western
journalists have labeled the "Gypsy invasion."

This year, two events have highlighted the asylum crisis for Roma: the
near-universal denial of protection afforded to Roma fleeing
systematic persecution in Kosovo; and the failure of the current
occupant of the European Union presidency, the government of Finland,
to adhere to international standards in assessing the claims of Romani
asylum applicants from Slovakia.

1. Kosovo

Having failed to protect the lives and other fundamental rights of
Roma in Kosovo during and after the war, the international community
has now denied protection to tens of thousands of Roma who have fled
the province over the past three months. The Roma in Kosovo have
suffered wholesale persecution and violence, primarily perpetrated by
ethnic Albanians intent on purging Kosovo of Roma in the wake of the
withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from the province in early June 1999.
Abuses documented by ERRC against Kosovo Roma include killings;
abduction and illegal detention; torture and other forms of
ill-treatment; rape; expulsion of Roma from homes and communities; and
forced entry, confiscation, looting and burning of houses and other
property. ERRC research in the field has provided strong evidence that
in most cases of abuse the KLA must be implicated.

That Roma would endure violence and abuse in Kosovo should have come
as no surprise. Indeed, as far back as 1993, the CSCE High
Commissioner on National Minorities had noted "credible reports of the
particularly acute situation of Roma in the former Yugoslavia." More
recently, international monitoring organisations, both governmental
and non-governmental, have repeatedly called attention to the
precarious situation of the Kosovo Roma.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United
Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have
expressed concern in particular about the situation of Roma in the
province. In early July, Sadako Ogata, United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees, was quoted as stating:  "I think the
protection of the Romas, the Gypsies, is probably the most difficult
and serious problem. The first priority is to protect them where they
are. But when we fail in that and want to take them out of the
country, we have to make sure that the receiving country has at least
some capacity of readiness to help. This has not proven the case in
some situations." These calls notwithstanding, the Kosovo Roma, both
inside and outside Kosovo, have been effectively denied international
protection by several OSCE Participating States.

On July 20, 1999, following the dramatic flight of thousands of Roma
from Kosovo to Italy, Italian and international press reported that
Italian authorities intended to cease considering persons fleeing
Yugoslavia as refugees, but would instead treat them as illegal
immigrants. According to reports of the Associated Press from July 20,
the Italian Interior Ministry was going to regard the issue as one of
human trafficking rather than the flight of persons persecuted on
ethnic grounds. Ministry spokesperson Daniela Pugliese is said to have
stated that the Ministry did not consider the lives of Roma to be at
risk in Kosovo.

As ERRC stated in a letter to Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema
on August 4, 1999, which has never received a response, Roma who have
fled Kosovo and arrived in Italy are entitled to international
protection. Since Roma as a group had been targeted for violent attack
by ethnic Albanians, all Roma from Kosovo have a well-founded fear of
persecution in that province. Accordingly, they should be considered
refugees in the sense of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of
Refugees.

The estimated 10,000 Roma from Kosovo who have fled to Macedonia since
the commencement of the war may soon no longer be welcome in that
country either. According to ERRC's information, refugees from Kosovo
will lose their legal status in Macedonia after September 28, 1999.
Pavle Trajanov, the Macedonian Minister of Interior, is reported to
have said that "the ideal solution" for the refugees is to be returned
to Kosovo, but that "since this is not possible for the Serbs and the
Roma," the Macedonian authorities were "planning on contacting the
Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs [to] try to persuade the
authorities to accept Kosovo refugees on the territory controlled by
Serbs." Minister Trajanov threatened to give serious consideration to
deporting the refugees "back to where they came from," since refugees
from Kosovo would not be able to stay in Macedonia "forever." In a
letter to Minister Trajanov on August 31, ERRC asked his office to
reaffirm its commitment to abide by its obligations under
international law and to provide Romani refugees a safe haven. To
date, our letter remains unanswered.

Almost 80,000 Roma from Kosovo are said to have left the province and
fled to Serbia proper and Montenegro. ERRC has been informed that
Yugoslav Red Cross offices in Serbia do not maintain records of people
fleeing from Kosovo, who, still within the borders of Yugoslavia, are
not officially considered refugees. Roma from Kosovo have the status
of "internally displaced persons" in Serbia, which in practical terms
means that they are not entitled to humanitarian assistance. In
addition, the Serbian Ministry of Education recently urged primary and
high schools in Serbia to refuse to enroll refugee children from
Kosovo, thus depriving them of their right to education under Article
62 of the Yugoslav Constitution. Finally, ERRC has documented a number
of instances in which Yugoslav authorities have returned to Kosovo
Roma fleeing the province. Accordingly, the return of Romani refugees
to any part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would create the
danger of the grave human rights violation of refoulement.

In this context, ERRC welcomes the statement of the Nordic countries
(Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) on the occasion of the
September 6 Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Roma, according
to which "[i]t is essential that the Roma are not requested or
encouraged to return until their living conditions in Kosovo are safe
for them." As of this date, those words are not being heeded by other
OSCE Participating States.

2. Finland

Roma also continue to flee other countries of Central and Eastern
Europe. With few exceptions, western governments return them, even
though in many instances, Roma are seeking protection from racist
violence in their country of origin. A particularly troubling example
of this phenomenon occurred in late June, when hundreds of Roma fled
Slovakia and sought asylum in Finland. Roma living in Slovakia
routinely suffer racial discrimination and racially-motivated
violence, and Slovak authorities have repeatedly failed to guarantee
the rights of Roma to physical security and equality, and to provide
remedy in cases in which their rights have been violated. The United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' 1998 Guidelines Relating to
the Eligibility of Slovak Roma Asylum Seekers found it "clear" that
"Slovak Roma may well be able to substantiate refugee claims based on
severe discrimination on ethnic grounds."

Upon learning of the Roma exodus, on June 30, ERRC sent a letter to
Kari Hakamies, the Finnish Interior Minister, asking Finnish
authorities to consider claims for asylum by Slovak Roma in accordance
with Finland's obligations under the 1951 Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees. The letter also urged Finland not to impose a visa
regime on Slovak citizens. On July 5, however, Finnish authorities did
just that. The following day, July 6, ERRC wrote to Tarja Halonen,
Foreign Minister of Finland, to express concern that the decision to
introduce a visa requirement for Slovak citizens seemed targeted at
Roma and that, whatever the intent, the effect of this decision was
likely to be disproportionately felt by Slovak Roma fleeing
persecution.

Since early July, the Finnish government has done nothing to allay
these concerns. On August 23, it was reported that Finnish authorities
had processed and rejected 300 applications for asylum filed by Slovak
Roma who had arrived in Finland in late June. According to a Finnish
government official quoted by the Czech news agency CTK, the
Immigration Office was likely to process the remaining approximately
1,200 applications by early November. ERRC has recently been informed
that Finnish authorities intend to return a number of the Romani
asylum applicants to the Czech Republic (a transit point for many on
the way to Finland), suggesting it is a "safe third country" in which
the Slovak Roma should, initially, have applied for asylum. And yet,
the Czech Republic has one of the highest rates of racially motivated
killing of Roma since 1989. Its failure to prevent, punish and remedy
racial violence and discrimination against Roma has been repeatedly
criticised by inter-governmental monitoring organs and NGOs. Moreover,
a number of courts in western Europe have ruled that the Czech
Republic does not have an adequate asylum procedure and should
therefore not be regarded as a "safe third country."
 
ERRC remains troubled that the Finnish government, traditionally a
strong advocate for Roma rights, has apparently succumbed to the
widespread racial stereotypes and anti-Roma sentiment prevalent in
much of Europe. In this context, ERRC recalls the Document of the
Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the
CSCE, in June 1990, which declared, in relevant part (para. 40):

"The participating States clearly and unequivocally condemn racial and
ethnic hatred xenophobia and discrimination against anyone. In this
context, they also recognize the particular problems of Roma
([G]ypsies). They declare their firm intention to intensify the
efforts to combat these phenomena in all their forms and will
therefore [inter alia] commit themselves to take appropriate and
proportionate measures to protect persons or groups who may be subject
to threats or acts of discrimination, hostility or violence as a
result of their racial, ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious
identity, and to protect their property."

In view of the foregoing, instead of imposing a visa requirement, the
Finnish government would be better advised to encourage the Slovak
government to improve the human rights situation of Roma within its
jurisdiction. As the current occupant of the EU Presidency, Finland's
actions understandably garner heightened scrutiny. In these
circumstances, Finland's failure to date to give due consideration to
Slovak Roma claims for political asylum sends a dismal signal about
the commitment to non-discrimination in asylum policy of even those
governments heretofore most sensitive to the human rights concerns of
Roma.

In view of the foregoing, the European Roma Rights Center calls upon
the OSCE Participating States to:

1. Recognise, and address adequately, the especially vulnerable
position of Roma in Kosovo, in particular by ensuring that the OSCE
Mission to Kosovo gives priority to the protection of Roma from
violence and discrimination;

2. Grant all Roma from Kosovo who are currently outside the province a
refugee status in accordance with the 1951 Convention relating to the
Status of Refugees, as persons fleeing a country in which their lives
and fundamental rights are in immediate danger;

3. Ensure that Roma who flee persecution in other countries do not
suffer discriminatory treatment in consideration of claims for asylum,
as required by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.


*****************

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://errc.org.

European Roma Rights Center
H-1525 Budapest 114
PO Box 10/24
Hungary

Telephone: (36 1) 42 82 351
Fax: (36 1) 42 82 356

*****************

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