Roma Rights 3-4, 2005: Justice for Kosovo

01 February 2006

Violence against Roma and others perceived as Gypsies in Kosovo after the end of the NATO bombing was part of a politically motivated systematic effort to “cleanse” Kosovo of non-Albanians and to bolster claims for an independent state. Almost seven years later perpetrators of crimes against humanity remain unpunished. Regarding “RAE” currently inside Kosovo, very few have returned to their empty and ruined neighbourhoods. Despite efforts by the international community to resettle “RAE” returnees, the lack of genuine peace has forced most of them to leave the province again. Of those that remain, many still live the lives of IDPs – internally displaced persons dependent on external powers. “RAE” IDPs live in permanent fear, rarely agree to speak to visitors due to years of empty promises, and deplore the missed chance to emigrate. Roma IDPs in three camps in Northern Mitrovica have been living since the autumn of 1999 on sites heavily contaminated by lead and the UNMIK, the responsible institution in charge of the province, has failed to relocate them despite being aware of the health hazard. Over six hundred people, more than half of them children.

Roma Rights 3 and 4, 2005: Justice for Kosovo (PDF) 

• Update (Dimitrina Petrova) 

• Justice for Kosovo (Claude Cahn) 

• Seeking Accountability for Gross Human Rights Violations Against the Roma in Kosovo (Yael Fuchs) 

• Implementation of the Anti-discrimination Law in Kosovo: A Plan in Need of Execution (Gregory Fabian)

• In the Aftermath of Ethnic Cleansing: Continued Persecution of Roma, Ashkalis, Egyptians and Others Perceived as (Memorandum of the European Roma Rights Centre)

• Alarming Facts about Roma Camps in North Mitrovicë/a: Lead Poisoning of Romani Children (Andi Dobrushi and Jeta Bejtullahu) 

• Everyone Fiddles while the Roma Burn  (Dianne Post) 

• “When we learned what was expecting us” (Interview with Kosovo Roma Refugees) 

• Albania * Austria * Bulgaria * Croatia * Czech Republic * Finland * Germany * Hungary * Kosovo * Moldova * Macedonia * Romania * Russia * Serbia and Montenegro * Slovakia * Slovenia * Spain * Sweden * United Kingdom  

• European Roma Rights Centre Roma Rights Summer Workshop 2005 (Larry Olomoofe)

• Why are you working for the ERRC? (Larry Olomoofe)

• Sa po aver than: Anti-Ciganizmo ande Franca (Romani-launguage summary of ERRC Country Report "Always Somewhere Else: Anti – Gypsyism in France") 

• Chronicle