47 Latvian Roma refused entry to Estonia

07 November 2001

According to a report issued on October 25, 2001, by the Riga-based Latvian Human Rights Committee, 47 Roma had been refused entry to Estonia approximately one week earlier. The report also stated that the refusal was justified by "a large number of crimes committed by Roma" in Tallinn, Estonia. According to the October 22, 2001 issue of the Latvian newspaper Today's News, Estonian authorities consider the prohibition on entry for Roma to Estonia "the only way to create order in the streets and keep crime down." On October 19, 2001, Mr Normunds Rudevics, president of Latvia's National Cultural Society of the Roma and a member of parliament in Latvia, held a press conference in which he denounced Estonia for violating the human rights of Roma.

(Latvian Human Rights Committee, Today's News)