The ERRC works to end racism. We “fight” racism, to use the clumsy metaphor. In doing so, we tilt at shadows, aiming to bring to an end phenomena hard to grasp and actions the symbolic content of which is frequently disputed. We are joined in this “struggle” by the Czech Republic, which, like all other European states with the exception of Andorra, Ireland and Turkey, has converted the commitment to end racism to legal obligation by ratifying the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In this work, either states aspire to real race-blindness in their own affairs and abandon documenting race once and for all; or states engage to determine discriminatory patterns by gathering data to use in the ...

The classical human rights doctrine posits that every human being, born free and equal in dignity and rights, endowed with a free will, is capacitated to make free choices. The free will is a transparent, self-reflective agency, expressing the individual’s interest. The individual subject, a bearer of rights, is in principle an indivisible and autonomous entity, interacting only with other, equally free subjects of rights. Thus, the classical human rights paradigm leaves out of consideration the whole process of “becoming” a conscious bearer of rights. Its point of departure is the terminal point at which the process of achieving rights capacity is already accomplished. As to women, children, and the various categories of incompetent ...

Housing and unhousing Roma is the theme of this issue of Roma Rights and a number of authors have provided excellent articles. On evictions, see for example Christina Rougheri’s piece on Greece or ERRC advocacy concerning Italy on page 86. Martin Demirovski writes on the failure of Macedonian authorities to rehouse Roma following a catastrophic fire. Eva Sobotka writes on one Czech ghetto, and the photo essay by Tatjana Perić depicts Roma kept away from their houses due to continuing ethnic hatred in Bosnia. Not all of the articles are negative: Ina Zoon offers a rich description of the right to adequate housing, and Mihail Gheorgiev and Barbora Kvočeková indicate strategies for advocates and litigators in the field of housing. Roma in Ózd ...

Without equal rights, women’s power is hardly real: it has to be navigated through the crooked labyrinths of existing social behaviours. And its flow will go only as far as the real masters (men) allow. And then, how does women’s cunning stop the hand of an abusive father or spouse? With the disintegration of traditional society, even this limited power of women is gone, because the social metabolism is not any longer so dependent on women’s roles. And once this happens, vindication of rights has become the new historic way in which women can reclaim their status. Lalia stood on the shaking border of traditional and modern patriarchy. How will her daughters make their life choices in the not too distant future? The discussions of this ...

Law may not put an end to racism, but the media might. The role recently played by media in Britain during the case of Stephen Lawrence indicates the power media have to expose the role of race where it is often denied, and to hold a society up to its public for scrutiny. The ERRC will continue to endorse Romani activists who demand retractions when Roma have been cruelly portrayed by the press. We will continue to act as press watchdog and demand that media correct misleading information promoting anti-Romani sentiment. We will continue to use media as a tool in the struggle against racism. And we will continue, as the violence against Roma continues unabated in Kosovo, to wonder whether our position on hate speech is ...

The ERRC is an organisation working on Roma rights. As such, we have tried to stay away from questions of Romani identity, defining our scope in an empirical, non-doctrinal way. We have developed an expertise on the RIGHTS of Roma - their expression in law, their monitoring in the field, their defence in the courts, and their advocacy in a variety of frameworks. But we have not developed an expertise, not even a consistent position, on ROMA: who are they, are they the same people most of the world still recognises as "Gypsies", what is specific about their culture, which groups are comprised in the Romani identity, what are the chief characteristics of this identity? We know from mountains of research material that roma are systematically ...

We devote this issue to the Roma of Kosovo, who – in the circumstances – will be the last to ever read it. We cannot mail copies to them either: they are scattered all over the continent, and given Europe’s ‘hospitality’ to Roma, it will take a very long time for them to obtain mailing addresses anywhere. As to Romani readers inside Kosovo, our mail would be going to empty neighbourhoods and ruins.