[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
115th Congress Printed for the use of the
1st Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Situation of Roma: MEP Soraya Post Discusses
Europe's Largest Ethnic Minority
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
November 7, 2017
Briefing of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Washington: 2018
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
234 Ford House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-1901
[email protected]
http://www.csce.gov
@HelsinkiComm
Legislative Branch Commissioners
HOUSE SENATE
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ROGER WICKER, Mississippi,
Co-Chairman Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. Maryland
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas CORY GARDNER, Colorado
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARCO RUBIO, Florida
RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas TOM UDALL, New Mexico
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
Executive Branch Commissioners
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
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The Situation of Roma: MEP Soraya Post Discusses
Europe's Largest Ethnic Minority
_______
November 7, 2017
Page
PARTICIPANTS
Erika B. Schlager, Counsel for International Law, Commission for
Security and Cooperation in Europe ................................. 1
Dr. Mischa E. Thompson, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and
Cooperation in Europe ............................................... 10
Dr. Ethel Brooks, Chair, Board of Directors, European Roma Rights
Centre; Member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council . 2
Soraya Post, Member of the European Parliament, Sweden ................ 3
Alfiaz Vaiya, Coordinator, European Parliament Anti-Racism and
Diversity Intergroup .................................................. 9
The Situation of Roma: MEP Soraya Post Discusses
Europe's Largest Ethnic Minority
----------
November 7, 2017
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The briefing was held at 10:16 a.m. in Room 215, Senate Visitors
Center, Washington, DC, Erika B. Schlager, Counsel for International
Law, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, presiding.
Panelists present: Erika B. Schlager, Counsel for International
Law, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Dr. Mischa E.
Thompson, Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and Cooperation in
Europe; Dr. Ethel Brooks, Chair, Board of Directors, European Roma
Rights Centre; Member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Council; Soraya Post, Member of the European Parliament, Sweden; and
Alfiaz Vaiya, Coordinator, European Parliament Anti-Racism and
Diversity Intergroup.
Ms. Schlager. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your patience
in waiting for us this morning. I think one of the challenges in having
such an esteemed guest is that she does have an incredibly busy
schedule while she's in Washington and New York. And we are very
honored and pleased to have a Member of the European parliament, Soraya
Post, here with us today.
My name is Erika Schlager. I'm Counsel for International Law at the
Helsinki Commission. And on behalf of the Commission, I would like to
welcome everyone here today. As some of you may know, the Helsinki
Commission has a very, very long track record of engagement on issues
relating to the human rights of Roma. We have been particularly active
in addressing mob violence against Roma, ending sterilization without
informed consent of Romani women, addressing the denial of citizenship
and the loss of identity documents for Roma, particularly in the
context of the breakup of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and
Yugoslavia, encouraging remembrance of and teaching about the genocide
of Roma, and countering prejudice and discrimination against Roma in
the context of our larger efforts to address racism and antisemitism.
And I'm very happy to be here today with my colleague, Dr. Mischa
Thompson, who takes the lead on these issues for the Helsinki
Commission; and also welcome Alfiaz Vaiya, who is the coordinator of
the European Parliament Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup. I will
turn first to my colleague, Dr. Ethel Brooks, who is the chair of the
board of directors of the European Roma Rights Centre, the leading
transnational advocacy group on Romani human rights issues, and an
associate professor at Rutgers University. In 2016, she was appointed
by the President of the United States to serve as a member of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Council. And she has also
served as a public member on U.S. delegations to several OSCE meetings.
So, Ethel, thank you very much for coming down here today, and I
invite Ethel to introduce MEP Post. Thank you.
Dr. Brooks. Thank you so much, Erika. And thank you, Mischa, and
the Helsinki Commission for bringing us all together today. It's really
a pleasure and an honor for me to be here and for me to be able to
introduce my fellow Romani feminist, my sister, and my role model, MEP
Soraya Post. Early in my career when I was giving a lecture on the
possibilities of Romani feminism as a young Romani scholar, an audience
participant stood up--a professor of gender studies--and said: But
that's impossible. You cannot be a feminist and a Romani woman. Those
are contradictory positions.
In fact, given the situation of Roma, of women, and particularly of
Romani women across Europe and across the globe, it's impossible not to
be a Romani feminist. Everyday forms of anti-Romani racism are common
in all realms of life, and are just a tiny part of the much larger,
violent, and much more powerful forces that Romani people and women
face constantly and consistently.
Romani women face multiple intersectional forms of discrimination
and violence including, in fact, assumptions about the impossibility of
Romani feminism. Romani people face racism, forced evictions, racially
motivated attacks, police abuse, segregation, inhuman and degrading
treatment, housing discrimination, expulsions and marginalization,
educational segregation and the denial of access to schools, of unfair
detention, hate speech, hate crimes, attacks by far-right groups, among
other forms of violence, with which at this point we should all be all
too familiar.
These structural forms of anti-Romani racism, of anti-Gypsyism,
must be combatted at every level and in every area. For this reason,
and for many others, it is my honor and my pleasure to introduce Member
of European Parliament, Mrs. Soraya Post, to you today. Romani woman,
activist, politician, feminist--she is at once an example of the
possibilities of Romani feminism and an active agent in the fight
against anti-Gypsyism in all forms and in all of its manifestations.
MEP Soraya Post was the first Romani woman in Swedish history to be
chosen as a candidate for a political party, and the European
Parliament's first member to be elected on the basis of a feminist
platform, representing the Swedish political party Feminist Initiative.
She is the first member of the European Parliament from an
ideologically antiracist and feminist party--and through that, her
election slogan during the campaign was, quote, ``Out with the racists,
in with the feminists,'' which I love.
Ms. Post is a Romani rights activist focusing on the empowerment of
Romani women and the self-determination of Romani society. Before being
elected MEP, she worked as a human rights strategist for the County
Council of West Sweden. She founded the International Roma Women's
Network, and also is a founder of the European Roma and Traveler's
Forum. She is active as an advisor to government bodies in Sweden, in
the Council of Europe, and the European Commission, and has been a
member of government inquiries on human rights, discrimination and
Romani rights.
She was also a member of the very important Swedish Commission
Against Anti-Gypsyism, which produced the report on anti-Gypsyism in
Sweden. And one of her priorities in the European Parliament has been
to work against anti-Gypsyism. She initiated the work on the resolution
for International Roma Day, anti-Gypsyism in Europe, and the EU
recognition of the 2nd of August to be recognized as Roma Holocaust
Memorial Day, to commemorate the Roma genocide in World War II.
Most recently--as recently as two weeks ago--Soraya Post ushered in
a resolution in the European Parliament based on the report on
fundamental rights aspects in Roma integration in the EU, fighting
anti-Gypsyism, which was adopted by an overwhelming majority in the
European Parliament. The explanatory statement of the resolution
begins, quote, ``We demand nothing more, but also nothing less, for the
Roma people than we demand for majority society,'' end quote.
The resolution is historic in that it addresses the structural,
far-reaching aspects, practices, and manifestations of anti-Gypsyism,
and maps out ways to overcome the discrimination and human rights abuse
that Roma have faced across Europe in every aspect of life and across
every geography. In the midst of this critical work, MEP Post is also
working to promote human rights and social justice across the board on
a number of issues, in solidarity with marginalized communities, from
standing up in the European Parliament against the Rohingya genocide to
pushing to redress violence against women as part of a revamped
security policy.
Welcome, MEP Soraya Post. Miri phen, my sister, and, as I said, my
role model for what it means to be a Romani feminist.
Ms. Post. OK, please let me start by expressing my gratitude to the
U.S. Helsinki Commission for organizing this briefing today, and in
particularly Mischa and Erika, who I have known for many years now,
after meeting in Warsaw. You remember, yes?
My name is Soraya Post, and I am a Roma woman from Sweden. I have
been a human rights activist for about 40 years. And I never thought
that I was going to be a politician, but when I was asked and nominated
I thought, yeah, why not? I will end up doing the lobbying in the
corridors. I will take the place where decisions are taken. So I did
it. And I'm very happy for that, because it is an arena where we have
an impact and can really make a change. I didn't believe it before--I
had some kind of prejudice towards politicians. But I really changed my
mind, because I can see--and also, towards the European Union and
European Parliament I had prejudice. But I must say, there are
hardworking politicians, with goals, with political ideals, which I
admire very strongly. So I find myself at the right place. I am blessed
by doing what I am doing now.
In 2014, when I got elected to represent the Swedish Feminist
Initiative, I took on the mission of safeguarding the principle of
democracy, of spreading and defending fundamental human rights, gender
equality, and the respect of basic values of the European Union's
treaties. And I am a member of the European Parliament, where I have
joined the political group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists
and Democrats. The committee I am a member of is the Civil Liberties,
Justice, and Home Affairs Committee. I'm a Ranking Member of the Human
Rights Subcommittee and a substitute on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
And the Committee on Civil Liberties does include EU member States. And
the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee for Human Rights is everything outside
of the EU.
One of my political goals is to place the situation of Roma on the
political agenda, and to make really tangible change at last. It is not
easy, though, because we have a lot of challenges in Europe today
because of so many wars and conflicts and peoples fleeing wars. And it
is a huge challenge for Europe, how to deal with migration and
refugees. So the EU is at a very critical point at the moment. And the
destiny of 12 million Roma is not the priority. And this goes
absolutely against the values of the EU. But this neglect is not a new
phenomenon. It has been going on for, like, 800 years in Europe. And
the result is that now in 2017, the situation of the Roma people is not
better than in third world countries.
And therefore, following my mission to fight against injustice and
inequality, I have recently initiated a draft of my European Parliament
report on the fundamental rights aspects in Roma integration in the EU,
fighting anti-Gypsyism. I just wanted to say, the first resolution was
2015, because all the years fighting as an activist was the majority
and the politician to recognize anti-Gypsyism as a special form of
racism towards Roma. But they never wanted--they always spoke about the
social aspects, and never spoke about the real root cause. So for me,
as a politician, it was most important that we use the right
terminology. So we go to the root cause of the problem before we start
to find solutions.
And the first resolution recognized anti-Gypsyism as a special form
of racism towards Roma. And in the same resolution, the recognition of
a memorial day from the Holocaust. It was a great start, which gave me
a strong platform to go further in the work on Roma now. And the
report, mentioned also by Ethel, was adopted in the parliament on the
25th of October, with a huge 75 percent majority. So it was a great
success. And I was so proud of my fellow colleagues that they really
took the responsibility to put their feet down and decide we have to do
something about it.
So anti-Gypsyism defines a specific form of racism directed against
the Roma, which manifests itself among others through individual and
institutional neglect, discrimination, inequalities, stigmatization,
hate speech and hate crime, social exclusion, et cetera, et cetera,
which are the effects, the outcome of the root cause. So after long and
hard work, the term was recognized. And anti-Gypsyism is very much
present at our society at every level. We had never been good enough
for the European societies to accept us as equal citizens, with
guaranteed equal access to our fundamental human rights. So it was very
important for me to raise up this, for people to understand and to
recognize.
And the result of the deprivation of our human rights is very clear
to see in all the reports produced by a fundamental rights agency and
by NGOs. I will just mention a few, like 80 percent of Roma are at the
risk of poverty, compared to 17 percent of the general population.
Every third Roma household lives without tap water. Sixty-three percent
of young Roma age 16 to 24 are not employed, nor are they in education
or training. School segregation is a shameful reality across Europe.
These are all different faces of anti-Gypsyism, which sometimes can be
unconscious as well. And until we manage to remedy anti-Gypsyism, the
root cause of the unacceptable situation that Roma are still facing in
Europe, we will not see improvement in the lives of the Roma people,
even if the European Commission initiates good programs and provides
funds to realize them.
So my question was, is there a need to improve this situation? Yes,
of course. And is there a way to improve the situation? Yes. And is
there a way out of mistrust from both sides? Yes, of course there is.
If there is a will, we can make it.
My report, which has been the first European Parliament report
addressing anti-Gypsyism at the wide scale, lists 12 pages of demands
and recommendations from which I will only mention a few of them. So it
calls for an end to the paternalistic treatment of Roma, an important
step from regarding them as mere clients, as well as to ensure equal
access and enjoyment of fundamental rights. This is key, since the
institutions that are supposed to protect citizens from acts of
discrimination and violence, in practice all too often fail so to
extent the same level of protect to Roma as to non-Roma, precisely
because of anti-Gypsyism.
So we demand the setting up of a truth and reconciliation
commission at member States and at EU level to acknowledge the
persecution, exclusion, and disownment of Roma throughout the
centuries, to document these in an official white paper and to make the
history of Roma part of the curricula in schools, which is crucial for
creating trust. We call on the court of auditors to shape the
performance of EU programs as they seem to fail to reach out to the
most disadvantaged. We ask for clear condemnation and sanctioning of
anti-Roma hate speech in the member States, and also in the house of
the Parliament.
We call for compensation for Roma women having been subjected to
forced sterilization. We call on member States to investigate without
delay unlawful removals of Roma children from their parents, and to
prevent such cases. We call for desegregation measures to ensure equal
treatment of Roma in the field of education, employment, health and
housing, and fundamental rights trainings for duty bearers. And
finally, we call for the continuation of an improved EU framework for
national Roma integration strategies after 2020. It's just a few--I
have 12 pages of demands.
And the report calls for the end of the paternalistic treatment of
Roma, an important step from regarding them as mere clients, as well as
to ensure equal access and enjoyment of fundamental rights. Yes, this
is a key, since the institutions that are supposed to protect to
protect citizens from acts of discrimination and violence, in practice
all too often fail to extend the same level of protection to Roma as to
non-Roma, because of the anti-Gypsyism.
So 12 million Roma are considered second-class citizens in Europe
today. And 800 years of human rights deprivation and harassment is
enough. We cannot still remain in the middle ages. So this is what my
work is about, and I'm happy for questions. And the report--I brought
one extra with me to give to you, Ethel. Of course, you can find it
online. But it is quite historical, and I really enjoy to give it to
you, because I know you're an activist also. We have met several times,
and I think we share the frustration that we in a civilized modern
society still have to speak about these kind of issues.
Thank you very much for inviting me here. And thank you, Mischa and
Erika. And also, I would like to thank Alfiaz. He's on my left, but
he's sometimes my right hand, you know? [Laughter.] And he is really
doing a great job when it comes to Roma issues in the Anti-racism and
Diversity Intergroup. And not being a Roma himself, you really do
understand the situation. It's not that easy, but I think you have got
it really into your heart, and mind. This is very important, that the
heart and the brain cooperate, you know? So, and it does. So thank you
very much. And I'm also very pleased to present my husband. This is his
first time traveling with me, and I'm very proud of that because I have
been traveling around the world always alone. And I would like to--my
first visit to Washington I wanted strongly to share with him, despite
he was really ill before he had to leave. But he did it. So thank you.
Ms. Schlager. Thank you for coming. I'm going to make a couple of
observations, if I may, on some of the points that you've raised. I do
have a couple questions of my own, but before I ask my own questions
I'll open it up to others here who may have some questions.
I really appreciated the emphasis you have made in the work that
you're doing on looking at the core human rights component, the
discrimination against Roma, as a cause of social and economic
inequality and social and economic problems. Certainly in the Helsinki
process I remember back to earlier years when the discussion really was
framed only about social and economic issues and really not looking at
civil and political rights at all, not looking at discrimination. I
think that's still something that we have to work to address, to
counter racism against Roma, whatever phrase we're using to describe
it. So I thank you for that.
I also really appreciated your assertion that when there's a will
there's a way, because I think working on Romani issues it is often the
case that political leaders that we work with at the national level or
the local level sort of throw their hands up and say, ``These are
really hard problems. What can we do?'' And I think that is the perfect
answer to that kind of reaction. And then I would invite you maybe to
say a couple more words about the Swedish report that was done looking
at the history of Roma in Sweden, which I gather may be--correct me on
this--but may be something of a model for what you're talking about
doing at the Europe-wide level in terms of truth and reconciliation.
If I could ask you maybe to speak to that question, and then I'll
ask others for questions if you have them. Thank you.
Ms. Post. Thank you. Yes, I don't remember which year, but some
years ago I was in the committee on Roma rights. And at the same time,
I was in another government committee on human rights in Sweden. I
travel a lot to Stockholm, and it was hard work. But during the time--
and those also human rights strategies, I got to the knowledge of the
different rights articles--articles of rights, the different
conventions. And I knew about the mistrust, the Roma mistrust against
the majority and the majority distrust towards the Roma. And so we
discussed and discussed. And I always highlighted the phenomenon of
anti-Gypsyism. But it was not on the agenda because, as you said, it
was always about social issues.
After a while, anyhow, I managed to convince the rest of the board
that there has to be a chapter in our report about anti-Gypsyism. And
when we were finalizing that act, I raised a question--what can we do
towards this anti-Gypsyism? We need to create trust between the two
parties. And so we started a discussion. And we invited one minister
from Canada--I don't remember the name--because they had a truth
commission when it comes to their First Nations. We got inspiration
from that, and also from South Africa, of course, because I think that
is what is needed, because so many people don't know about the history.
So that was one of our recommendations in that report, that we should
have a truth commission.
Then it was at the table at the governmental level and ended up at
the finance department, the whole report. So we had to wait some couple
of years. And then finally they agreed on, OK, we can have like a wide
look which covers 100 years of Swedish history, from 1900 to the year
2000. So we started, and what I did go through was laws, how
authorities, public services, judges--what kind of impact and how did
they look at Roma, and what kind of tools, and what happened to the
Roma in Sweden during this time.
And the first, I just would like to say, is between 1914 and 1954,
the borders were closed for Roma. No Roma from Europe could enter
Sweden, which means that during the Second World War and during the
Holocaust, not one single Roma could enter or flee to Sweden, because
they were not welcome. And also, the Roma who were in Sweden couldn't
go abroad, because then they couldn't come back. But as a matter of
fact, two girls managed to enter, to flee from the concentration camps,
with the white buses. And they thought they were two Jewish girls. But
they managed to enter. And they grew up and got married and lived their
lives in Sweden.
Then 1923, also, a law said that we are going to make the life for
Roma so bad so that they will make a choice to leave the country by
themselves. And then there were laws from 1930s until 1974, practices
forced sterilization. My mother was one of the victims. When she was
pregnant for a third time, in the seventh month of pregnancy, they made
a forced abortion and forced sterilization. She was 22 at the time. It
was 1958, 1959. The last forced sterilization towards a Roma woman was
1974 in Sweden. Until 1965, Roma were not allowed to go in school in
Sweden. And they were not allowed to be settled. They could stay at one
place at most three weeks, and they had to register at--let's say, the
local police office, and had to stamp in a book. And after three weeks,
if they didn't move, it was a reason to put them in jail. So they had
to move all the time.
Oh, there are so many things. And the churches on Sunday--if there
was a farmer--let's say a farmer who hosted Roma on their ground, they
were named and shamed in the church, that farmer. So there was
punishment to treat Roma as human. So--and this is all recognized and
written in this white book, which was released--what was it, 2013 or
2014, I believe. And I didn't believe in it from the beginning because
this--it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted a truth commission. And I
didn't want only an excuse. I wanted an excuse from the State, or from
the parliament, but I also wanted an action plan. I don't need an
excuse. I don't need an apology. I just wait on an action plan.
So I was critical. But I was there at the opening and the crown
princes of Sweden were there, attending to this. It was nice for the
audience. And because at the same moment a journalist found out that
Roma were registered by police in Skara, in the southern part of
Sweden. Like, 5,000 Roma were registered, like a family tree. I was one
of them, and my husband, my children, and my grandchildren. And even
people who are dead, people born in the 18th centuries--1800-something
were also registered. So it was really together a family tree, which is
totally forbidden in Sweden, to have registration on ethnic ground.
So I lost my--I have to say--my positive feelings because I thought
also during so many years I gave out most personal experience of my own
life, of my mother's life, and how it was just to get people to
understand and to get it, why is the situation as it is today. But then
I was so disappointed. So when the journalist called me late in the
evening, can I speak with you, because tomorrow they will drop a bomb
about this. Can I send some journalists to you and take pictures? Yes,
but what is it? Yes, your name is on that. And I started to cry--all
this work for nothing. And what about this white book?
Anyhow, after some while I went very strong on media and condemning
what Sweden was doing, which is like a role model for an open country.
So I was very critical. I met with the minister of justice, the
minister of integration and the police, everybody, together with some
other Roma complaining and demanding an investigation of this. And
there was a kind of investigation, but they didn't want to recognize
that this was an ethnic registration. But then the justice ombudsman or
the justice counselor decided to give compensation of, like, 500 euro
to each one of them.
And I said, this is another offending towards us, because this
register will last forever. The names of us will be put in an archive
for professors or others to look for. And I fear, because of the
political situation across Europe, including Sweden, is turning too
much to the right, even to the extremes, and I don't know in which
hands this will come to. So civil right defenders helped some people
and got it to trial. And then they raised the amount of compensation
to, like, 3,000 euro. And that's where we are today. But all who were
registered, about 500,000 of them, were children, will get this
compensation.
Yes, the white book did amazing things, because it gave a kind of
trust and it did empower the Roma NGOs, the civil society, it did. But
it was so sad that this with the police register happened at the same
time, almost the same time, because all the work was, like, destroyed.
But we are still fighting. And I must say that the minister of
integration at the time, who is a very good friend of mine, left the
politics. He is a diplomat in Jordan now. He really stood up for our
cause, because he did understand and he saw by his own eyes that what
we had been telling was no lie. It was documented in the church books,
in the archives, everywhere, about the harassment and violations
towards the Roma, and what kind of politics it was.
But I still believe that a white book--and this book is also spread
out to schools, so the young people can in fact read about it. And I
think it is important to create trust, and to have people understand--
in a way, to kill the stereotype picture, this given understanding of
why are Roma at the level they are at the moment. So that's why I want
to have a truth commission. And I also think it's not--it's fair if
people recognize and wash away the dirt before they try to go ahead. I
mean, if there is a basket with apples and there is one rotten apple in
the bottom, all the fresh apples will get destroyed. So this is the way
we have to do it also in Europe.
Ms. Schlager. Thank you.
Ms. Post. It was a long answer, but I thought I had to say all
this. [Laughs.]
Ms. Schlager. I think it says a great deal about the larger
context. And I really appreciate the work that you have done on that
report and for sharing that with everyone here. I think we have time
for a couple of questions before we have a hard stop at 11:00.
Questioner. I've got actually a few questions. But let me start out
with, you mentioned----
Ms. Schlager. I'm sorry, can you say who you are?
Questioner. Yes, I'm Nina Kraut. I'm a domestic and international
human rights lawyer in D.C., and my son is Roma, from Romania.
I'm interested--you mentioned that the EU was very concerned with
refugees, migrants, and so on. I'm kind of interested, is there any
separation that the EU in general or in particular countries, how
they're treating Roma in relation to the migrant and refugee
population, or are they lumping Roma with them and dealing with them
sort of as a big group? Or have they sort of put Roma to the side, and
ignored them while they deal with the refugee, migrant situation?
That's one of my questions.
Ms. Post. Yes. I would quickly answer to that question. Absolutely,
the Roma is put on the side. It's no priority at all. It's really put
on side.
Questioner. And they're not mixed with----
Ms. Post. No, not mixed. No, not mixed. No, Roma are put on the
side again.
Mr. Vaiya. Maybe I can just--to kind of show that in practice, in
our common European asylum system, of course the Roma living within the
EU are, of course, treated differently to asylum seekers and refugees.
I mean, they're treated as European Union citizens. But if you're
looking in migration policy, the European Union has listed some
countries as safe countries. And they tend to be the western Balkans
and Turkey, so where the majority of the Roma population comes from.
And the reasoning behind listing these countries as safe countries of
origin is to prevent Roma from those countries coming to Europe. I
mean, amongst other minorities but mainly the Roma minorities in the
western Balkans and Turkey.
So we see this discrimination within our common European asylum
system in terms of asylum and refugee policy. And I think within Europe
itself, when we're seeing about the treatment we provide for the newly
arrived asylum seekers and refugees, it's probably treatment that we
provide to the Roma communities is probably at a much less standard and
a lesser level. Especially in the eastern EU member States, we seem to
have to--one example MEP Soraya Post gave yesterday was that you have--
in a farm, you have the cows and the hens----
Ms. Post. Cow stables.
Mr. Vaiya. In the cow stables. In Romania, for example, they've
actually put Roma--and they've taken the cows out to put the Roma into
the cow stables. I mean, just to give you the indication in the kind of
climate we're living. In Eastern Europe it's particularly bad, but also
in Western Europe. I mean, make no mistake, Turkey--oh, not Turkey--
France, Italy, are at the forefront of racial segregation when it comes
to Roma and to other minorities. I think the key is to also frame it as
all particular minorities are facing severe problems, but the Roma are
probably facing the most severe at the moment.
Ms. Post. Yes, and I just wanted to add, like during the Balkans
War, a lot of Roma had to flee. And still, they are stateless in Italy,
for example. And today, Germany, for example, are sending back Roma who
have been under--[inaudible]--it's, like, in 20 years--25. Young Roma
who were born in Germany are transferred back by force to Kosovo. They
don't know the language. They have no relatives, nothing--nothing! So
no doubt, of course, they are treated very bad. And also among the
refugees from, like, Syria, there are differences in the camp between
the Roma and the non-Roma refugees also.
Ms. Schlager. I'd like to turn to Ethel again and ask her if she
has any last thoughts before I give the microphone to Mischa for
concluding comments.
Dr. Brooks. I really want to thank MEP Soraya Post for the work
that you've been doing and for your comments today and for kind of
framing it, especially around the events in Sweden and the white paper
and what that means for all of us. But, you know, even here in the
U.S., my home state of New Hampshire, it was 1979 when you had the last
expulsion of Roma from my home state, where there's a relatively large
Romani community in the north. And we have this entire history of anti-
Romani racism, of anti-Gypsyism, across Europe and across the world.
And we need to really recommit to that fight, and to think about the
current political moment as one that's particularly difficult for Roma
and non-Roma alike.
You know, thinking about various elections that have happened from
Orban to Czech Republic, to Germany with the Alternative fur
Deutschland, to Brexit, right? Many of them have run on an anti-Roma
platforms. And so we're in a really treacherous political moment. And
Romani citizens across the world have really--we've known this for
decades now, for centuries now. But really thinking about what that's
going to mean in terms of bringing everyone together.
So the question that you asked about kind of refugees and Roma,
building upon what my colleagues have said--one of the things that's
happened is that even in this moment, right now, there's an attempt to
kind of separate Romani issues from refugee issues. We really actually
have to keep Roma at the center of a lot of this because these are 12
million people, right? I mean, we number 12 million. And at the same
time, it's important to build these coalitions and to think about how
we can come up with political models that really bring people together
as opposed to kind of leave people aside and leave people behind.
Dr. Thompson. And with that, I would actually like to thank you for
joining us today. I'm Dr. Mischa Thompson with the Helsinki Commission.
And we have been putting on a number of briefings and events that are
focused on increasing diversity on both sides of the Atlantic, that
focus on all 57 countries that are part of the OSCE, in part because we
really see this as being key to the stability of the region. And so the
information that you heard today is specifically talking about what the
history and experience has been for Roma people, but really with this
idea that there's a larger vision of how our societies can actually be
diverse and work.
For those of you who might have noticed the poster in the hallway,
it is actually from a political participation initiative that the OSCE
led with young Roma. And I think it's just a great example of the young
people that are going to be the leaders in our generation from across
Europe as well. And this is something that the Commission is happy to
continue to support. And I think we've been doing this now for close to
two decades.
With that, I would like to close and just thank you all for being
here.
[Whereupon, at 10:59 a.m., the briefing ended.]
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