Sudden Rage at Dawn: Violence Against Roma in Romania
08 September 1996
Sudden Rage at Dawn: Violence Against Roma in Romania
The spread of community violence against Roma is the main issue focused on by the reports on the human rights situation of the Roma in Romania since the fall of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. Triggered by arguments or fights between Roma on the one hand and Romanians or Hungarians on the other, angry mobs of co-villagers assembled and set the houses of Roma on fire, chased away entire Roma communities and sometimes even killed persons belonging to them. The pressing human rights concern for the Roma in Romania has therefore been described during the last years in terms of inter-ethnic clashes and racially motivated violence.
The ERRC' s missions to Romania during 1996 revealed that a major change has occurred in the kind of abuse from which Roma in Romania suffer today. The previous pattern of community violence has been replaced by a new pattern of police raids systematically conducted in Roma communities. Before, angry mobs of villagers attacked neighboring houses of Roma. This was a form of collective punishment for crimes committed by individuals belonging to the Roma minority. Today, the threat comes from an official institution -- the police.
The international community also bears some responsibility for the spread of official violence against Roma in Romania. In March 1993, in response to unflattering articles in the international press about anti-foreigner violence in Germany, the German government reached an agreement with the Romanian government and began deporting Roma to Romania. The German and Romanian governments were able to agree on a plan whereby Germany would solve its problem of racially-motivated violence at home by deporting the potential victims and paying the Romanian government to take them. Many of the Romanian Roma in this group of deportees had earlier fled community violence and the rise in anti-Romani sentiment at home, although it had long since proven extremely difficult both to enter Western Europe and to claim asylum there. The ultimate result of this futile flight and return was that the Romanian government received tacit international approval to deal with Roma however they saw fit. Police raids of Romani settlements, involving harassment and physical abuse, began thereafter to become a recurring pattern of law enforcement in Romania.
In addition to police raids, the ERRC has investigated a number of incidents which also indicate increasing brutality on the part of law enforcement bodies. This report builds on the work of many people, Roma as well as Gadje, i.e. non-Roma. It provides some follow-up on the anti-Romani community violence of 1990-1993. The report then addresses the current human rights situation of Roma, and highlights an emerging pattern of police brutality directed at the members of this minority. The documented cases, as well as the ERRC's overall monitoring of Roma rights in Romania, are the basis of our recommendations to the Romanian government. This report does not cover all or even most of the issues which characterize the human rights situation of Roma in Romania. We have chosen to focus here only on what we consider to be the most disturbing threats to the most fundamental rights.
Sudden Rage at Dawn: Violence Against Roma in Romania
