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Cases of discrimination in other areas
12
They quieted down after that.
This is another example of how easy it is to judge the Roma community as a whole without even considering
the negative consequences that comments like these can have. Unfortunately, there are many prejudices and
stereotypes targeting the Roma community as a whole.
11.
Ciudad Real.
Public spaces.
Direct discrimination.
Nine students were returning home by train after having
attended the II Session of the University Diploma in Social Intervention with the Roma community offered by the
Public University of Navarre. Before they even had a chance to sit down, one of the other passengers in the train
told them to quiet down. The students assumed that the woman was referring to someone else because they
hadn’t even found a seat yet. A short time later the same woman got up and chastised them ordering them to
keep quiet because she wanted to sleep and saying “you’re always the same ones, I know you.”
When the woman saw that the students were dumbfounded she tried to rectify her words saying “you people
from Andalusia always cause a raucous wherever you go; I lived in Andalusia for many years, in Huelva”. The
students answered that she was being unreasonable and pointed out that she was already complaining before
the train even pulled out of the station. They also asked her what she meant by “I know you” (they suspected
that she meant that she knew they were Roma given that only one of them actually was from Andalusia). In the
end, the woman decided not to discuss the issue any further and did not address them any more for the rest
of the trip.
12.
Barcelona.
Public spaces.
Direct discrimination.
The FSG Barcelona office informed us of a situation that
apparently happens regularly. At a popular plaza the local Barcelona police chase away the Romanian Roma who
typically go there to eat and rest. This police action is not in response to any sort of disorderly conduct on the
part of these people; they do not make excessive noise and this happens at noontime.
The police pressure is accompanied by:
- Verbal comments associating these people with delinquency but without any evidence or apparent reason
other than pure prejudice.
- Excessive force such as bringing along the cleaning service ordering them to take away their trolleys (work
tool for the people there who collect scrap metal) without even letting them recover their personal belongings
(documentation, mobile phones, etc.).
- Using the municipal cleaning service to perform duties that have nothing to do with maintaining a public space
but rather to expel a group of people from it.
Public spaces are areas where all people are entitled to be and move freely.
This is a clear example of direct discrimination prohibited by Directive 2000/43/EC.
13.
Barcelona Dignity.
Direct discrimination.
A Romanian Roma couple went to the DGAIA (Directorate-Gene-
ral for Children and Adolescents) to renounce custody of their recently born daughter.
They were accom-
panied by the FSG mediator and coordinator in Barcelona. During the process, the jurist at the DGAIA, EFI5, made
xenophobic comments about whether the parents of the child were Roma or not. She started by asking them
“Are you Roma?”. When they said yes, she commented that “people want to adopt blond, blue-eyed children”.
Then she looked at the mother of the child and seeing that she had blue eyes said “In your case, maybe not,
given that the mother has blue eyes”.
The jurist then asked “Do the parents or grandparents of the child have a genetically transmissible disease”?
In our view, these questions are an affront to personal dignity in addition to being discriminatory. Moreover they
are irrelevant bearing in mind the situation and only serve to perpetuate stereotypes against the Roma commu-
nity as a whole.