Slovakia

Stanko Daniel

Speaking at the 17th Meeting of the Decade's International Steering Committee in Spisska Nova Ves, Slovakia, Roma activist and ERRC consultant Stanislav Daniel called upon the Slovak government and other European governments to end school segregation.

Spisska Nova Ves, Slovakia, September 22, 2009: Segregated education for Romani children is still a widespread practice in many European countries. The European Roma Rights Centre's (ERRC) consultant Stanislav Daniel compared the US experience in desegregation with the European practice in his opening address delivered today on behalf of the civil society at the meeting of the International Steering Committee of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, noting that, "52 years ago the US president called troops to support desegregation of schools, in many Decade countries the practice of segregation is still very common."

Slovakia's Roma communities are worried about a series of attacks on Roma in the region. Most recently, a 45-year-old Roma woman was shot dead and her 13-year-old daughter was seriously injured in the town of Kisléta, in eastern Hungary. Fears have been stoked further by a recent call, issued via an extremist website, for people to ‘mobilise’ in Šarišské Michalany (Prešov Region) in response to an alleged attack by two young Roma on a 65-year-old man. The pensioner, who is not Roma, lost an eye as a result of the attack.

“Friends, Slovaks. Let’s do everything so that after Saturday you can call yourself the fighters for the nation,” reads the call, which appeared on the website pospolitost.org. Slovenská Pospolitosť, a far-right organisation which was once banned by the Interior Ministry, said that the website did not belong to it. However, the Sme daily reported that a Slovenská Pospolitosť representative responded via the email address given on the website.

The sinister film echoes the infamous Abu Ghraib prison abuses in Iraq. Police dog handlers threaten young boys with Alsatian dogs and as officers shout orders the detainees are forced to hit each other on the face to the amusement of their captors. The shockingly brutal video was filmed at a police station in the Slovakian town of Kosice and has provoked outrage since it was leaked. According to the graphic footage seven Slovak police officers forced six Roma boys between the ages of 10 and 16 to violently hit each other, kiss each other and strip naked. It has also been alleged that police set the dogs loose on the youths and that two of the boys were bitten.

The Kosice video is just the latest incident in a string of violent attacks against Roma in Europe as the recession deepens. Slovakia in particular has an appalling record of virulent racism against Europe's most oppressed minority.

Police brutality in Slovakia has sparked outrage after several police officers were accused of brutality against six young Romas. The policemen recorded “humiliating scenes” with their mobile phones and cameras, laughing and encouraging the children to punch each other. The disturbing video has now been leaked online:

The policemen in the eastern city of Kosice forced the six, the two youngest being 13 years old, to undress and slap and kiss each other, the Sme daily reported.

The officers also let loose unmuzzled dogs at the boys, and some of the children were bitten, according to the daily.

Nine policemen have already been laid off and accused of power abuse and blackmail, police chief Jan Packa told a press conference yesterday. Their superiors have been suspended as well, he added.

Shouting each other down, women hurl questions at a rare visitor to their hometown, a destitute Roma ghetto amid picturesque hills of central Slovakia. “My father gets 3,500 koruny. How much is it in Euro?” blurted Magdalena Horvathova, a chubby-cheeked 17-year-old with a baby in her arms. “Will there be twenty and fifty notes?” asked a raspy-voiced grandmother with two braids emerging from underneath a yellow scarf.

“I am afraid of the Euro,” said 55-yearold Ruzena Mizigorova, her eyes welling up. “I am not smart enough to count those coins. We will get cheated in the stores.”