Brussels, 04/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - With the approach of International Roma Day on 8 April, the NGO Amnesty International has called on member states to do more to put an end to the discrimination against the Roma community.
Over ten years after the adoption of the directive on combating discrimination based on race and ethnic origin, the Roma continue to suffer discrimination in 27 countries of the European Union in areas including access to housing, health care, employment and education, Amnesty International (AI) states in a press release published on Thursday 4 April.
The EU “must use all the tools at its disposal to penalise governments that fail to tackle discrimination and violence against Roma people”, AI states, recalling that six million Roma people live in EU countries, and that eight out of ten of those people are at risk of poverty, and only one in seven young adults completes secondary education. The Roma are also often faced with forced expulsion, especially in France, Italy and Romania. “In the Czech Republic, Greece and Slovakia, Roma children continue to attend segregated schools, which contravenes national and EU laws which forbid racial discrimination”, AI states, also noting that over 120 serious acts of violence against Roma people and their property occurred in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia between January 2008 and July 2012. Those attacks included shootings, stabbings and arson attacks. (SP/transl.jl)