Call the Witness, the Roma Pavilion, was a collateral event in the framework of the 54th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale die Venezia, 2011. It was organized by Open Society Foundations, and developed and realized by BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht under the artistic directorship of Maria Hlavajova. Digital venue: www.callthewitness.net 

Since 2008, we in the European Roma Rights Centre have received reports about a shocking number of attacks against Roma. Nine Romani adults and two Romani children died in these attacks as a result of shooting and Molotov cocktails. Many other Romani individuals and families were attacked, even in the safety of their own homes.

ERRC Executive Director Robert Kushen speaks at the Spring 2011 Symposium, “Racially inferior”: Roma, Sinti and other Holocaust victims, organised by the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University on 1 February 2011. [Rob’s speech “Roma in Today’s Europe: Contemporary Patterns of Prejudice and Discrimination” can be viewed from 18:20]

The morning after a court victory I am often left wondering what we, at the European Roma Rights Centre, have won. For the people we represent, court victories can be at best symbolic: they may receive a little bit of money, but this hardly begins to compensate them for the damage that they’ve actually suffered.