2024 ERRC News Review: Police Violence Against Roma
09 January 2025
There is nothing new about police violence against Roma and the collusion and complicity of state institutions. But, what was relatively novel and increasingly evident in 2024, after decades of advocacy and litigation, was the growing recognition that when it comes to policing Roma, the scale of abuse goes well beyond a few ‘bad apple’ deviants in uniform and requires systemic responses.
However, 2024 provided reminders that old habits die hard when it comes to policing Roma, as the PACE Standing Committee put it, it’s a situation of “institutional racism, or systemic racism, of law enforcement authorities against Roma and Travellers.” The parliamentarians’ motion condemned police brutality which includes “inhuman and degrading treatment, torture, excessive use of force, and violence resulting in some cases in the victim’s death”, and stated that antigypsyism is evident in the way Roma are policed and in the “culture of impunity that still too often prevails for such practices.”
IN THE COURTS IN 2024
On 30 January 2024, the European Court of Human Rights communicated the case against the Czech Republic for the death of Romani man Stanislav Tomáš while being forcibly restrained by police officers in Teplice in 2021. The Court wants to know if the victim’s right to life was violated, if his death resulted from the use of more than absolutely necessary force, and if Stanislav Tomáš was subjected to treatment contrary to Article 3 at the hands of the police. The Court also asked whether the domestic authorities have before them information that was sufficient to bring into play their additional duty:“to take all reasonable steps to unmask any racist motive.” Story here.
In Italy, on 2 February 2024, Hasib Omerovic, the 37-year-old disabled Romani man who ‘fell’ nine metres from his bedroom window during a police raid in 2022 in Primavalle, testified before magistrates. His lawyers reported that he provided a detailed reconstruction of events and stated that
"he was attacked and beaten by the officers with kicks, punches and blunt objects; he recognized an officer as the protagonist of the brutal attack; he stated that his wrists were tied with an electric cable and, at some points, that he was hooded. Finally, he confirmed that he was grabbed and then thrown from the window of the apartment on Via Gerolamo Aleandro."
Three officers have been accused of false testimony and torture following the unauthorised raid on the family home in Primavalle. On 25 October, at a preliminary hearing, the Ministry of the Interior (the Viminale) was named as a responsible party and the Omeric family will seek damages from the ministry. The hearing was adjourned until 21 February 2025. Story here.
On 5 March 2024, the ECtHR case T.K. and others vs Slovakia concluded in a friendly settlement. The applicants raised a number of complaints linked to a police operation of 2 April 2015 in their community in Vrbnica and the ensuing investigation into allegations of ill treatment and discrimination at hands of the police officers involved. The friendly settlement declaration referred to the similarity of the issues raised in the case R.R. and R.D. v. Slovakia (no. 20649/18, 1 September 2020) concerning the infamous Moldava nad Bodvou police raid. Each of the applicants was awarded €13,750 in non pecuniary damages; and jointly €7,210 to cover costs and expenses. Judgement here.
On 22 July 2024, over the same violent 2015 police raid in Vrbnica, the Bratislava IV City Court issued a historic first instance ruling in a police brutality case brought by Roma against the Slovak Ministry of Interior. This marked the first time a civil court in Slovakia has found the police guilty of discrimination based on ethnic grounds.
The court acknowledged that the police operation and the very manner in which search actions were carried out was discriminatory and constituted harassment based on ethnic origin. It also held that human dignity of the plaintiffs was violated during the police intervention. The Slovak Republic, represented by the Ministry of Interior, was ordered to pay each of the six plaintiffs €2,000 in non-pecuniary damages. Additionally, the court mandated that the Slovak Republic issue a public apology expressing regret for the harm done by the police operation on its official website for a period of one month. Story here.
INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM
On 22 April, the US Department of State annual global report on human rights practices raised concerns about anti-Roma racism across Europe, and made special mention of policing. A common finding in many country reports was that Roma “continued to face widespread governmental and societal discrimination, social exclusion, and harassment, including ethnic profiling by police, alleged abuse while in police custody, discrimination in employment, limited access to education, and segregated schooling.” Story here.
Published on 22 October 2024, the latest ECRI monitoring report on Italy provoked a furious reaction from deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini to his police force being ‘dragged through the mud’ by what he called a ‘useless organization also paid for by the taxes of Italian citizens’. Salvini declared "To be told that law enforcement agencies are racist pisses you off, we are always with uniforms, if these gentlemen like Roma and illegal immigrants, take them to Strasbourg". Deputy Prime Minister, Antonio Tajani expressed his government’s profound disdain for the Council of Europe report: “I don’t agree with a word of what was writte. There is no racism within the Italian police force.”
ECRI bluntly expressed its regret that “little or no action has been taken over the last few years to ensure better accountability in cases of any racist or LGBTI-phobic abuse committed by state police officers, carabinieri and other law enforcement officials.” The report criticised the lack of accountability in cases of racist abuse and violence committed by law enforcement, highlighted the extent of routine ethnic profiling, and how such practices erode trust in the police, generating “a feeling of humiliation and injustice among affected groups and resulting in stigmatisation and alienation.”
ECRI found that Italian authorities seemed unaware that ethnic profiling could even be an issue, “and have not considered the existence of racial profiling as a potential form of institutional racism; and called for an independent review of stop and search practices. Story here.
10 December: In its concluding observations on Greece, UNCERD recommended that the state conduct prompt, thorough and impartial investigations into all allegations of racial profiling, racially motivated police violence and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials. UNCERD expressed concerns about reports of police violence targeting Roma and non-citizens such as migrants, asylum seekers and refugees; and the lack of detailed information on investigations, prosecutions, convictions and sanctions for such acts. For more, see here.
18 December: The publication of UNCERD’s Concluding Observations coincided with the ERRC’s latest report Ruthless & Racist: Policing Roma in the Balkans, which found that in Greece, “Roma and other racialised minorities find themselves at the sharp end of systemic racism in the way they are policed, and brutal, sometimes lethal, police violence is a regular occurrence; the authorities fail to launch prompt and thorough investigations; and police impunity remains, for the most part, intact.” Story here.
THE WHEELS OF JUSTICE
Police violence is symptomatic of a wider crisis of the criminal justice system, where structural racism is embedded in the routines and norms that pervade state institutions; and justice is routinely absent. This is a crisis that allows for recurring abuses of human rights, a lack of accountability and a culture of impunity.
In October 2024, on the third anniversary of the killing of one 18-year-old Romani youth and the wounding of two others shot by Greek police, human rights defenders and defense attorneys for the families issued a formal protest about the lack of any progress with the investigation into the shooting. Three years after the fatal shooting in October 2021, and two more killings by police of Romani youths, this investigation has ‘stagnated’.
According to the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM), on the third anniversary of the killing, both defense attorneys for the victims’ families called for justice in a memorandum of protest which stated:
“Three years after the police murder of 18-year-old Nikos Sampanis and the near-murder of two more 16-year-olds, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Supreme Court is called upon to carry out her duty and order the completion of the investigation as an absolute priority, so that the perpetrators, who continue to serve as uniform police officers and remain unpunished, finally sit in the defendant’s dock.” Story here.
On 1 October 2024, by way of a grim reminder that for Roma justice is not only delayed but often blatantly denied, Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation acquitted four defendants accused of the racially motivated murder of Malin Iliev, in June 2012. The 59-year-old Rom, was gravely injured by a bomb planted outside the EUROMA political party headquarters in Sandanski, and died a month later. Story here.
As the manifesto of the ERRC’s Roma Justice Project put it: “Europe’s criminal legal systems are not broken. They are functioning exactly as they were designed to. They just weren’t designed to serve Roma and other racialised minorities. We must address antigypsyism throughout the system as a root cause of discrimination.”
On 8 May 2024, the ERRC launched the Roma Justice Project which calls for an overhaul of criminal legal systems across Europe to deliver justice for Roma. This first-of-its-kind initiative is centred around a web platform that links testimonies and accounts of injustice against Romani individuals with an ever-growing body of evidence that includes research, data and litigation.
Through the Roma Justice Project, the ERRC and its allies will continue to expose how structural racism, embedded in the routines and norms of the criminal legal system, effectively skews outcomes in a manner that denies justice to Roma. We demand that states dismantle the systems and culture that facilitates anti-Roma racism and allows such practices to prevail. For 2025, combating antigypsyism in Europe, where the spectre of far-right violence looms large, calls for broad-based collective struggle and concerted anti-racist action: No pasarán!
