Roma Refugees' Catch-22

Anti-Roma sentiment permeates Slovak society from top to bottom. The British Government has just introduced visa requirements for migrants from Slovakia but asylum applicants are never granted visas. Amanda Sebestyen reports.

Apoll conducted by the Social Science Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in 1992 asked: "What would be your first emotional reaction in terms of accepting or not accepting Gypsies/Roma?" Choosing from seven options, 65.6% of the Slovak respondents answered: "I would expel Roma".

In December 1994, in response to a research poll by the Center for Social and Marketing Analysis of Bratislava, 85% of respondents denied that Roma suffered discrimination, but 57% then stated that "Roma are a different group of people so stricter laws should apply to them." Racism against Romany Gypsies in Slovakia has been expressed at the very top. In 1993, recently-ousted Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar demanded welfare cuts to Romany mothers in order to curtail "the reproduction of socially unadaptable and mentally retarded people." He described Romanies as "antisocial, mentally backward, unassimilable and socially unacceptable".

Here, the Home Office claims the Roma are not in any danger. It cites civil rights clauses in the Slovak Constitution, yet it is precisely breaches of the constitution that caused Britain in the EU Presidency to reject Slovakia's membership application. Paul Polansky, member of the US Congressional Committee on the Roma issue, has spent the last four years living in Slovak and Czech Romany communities while interviewing Holocaust survivors. He comments on the exodus of Slovak Roma:

"Despite what the constitution says, one only has to read the national and international press to see how Slovakia's political leaders are ignoring the constitution to run a feudal-democratic state today...The criminal code looks good on paper, but in practice local authorities and the police do what they wish. When I was in Kosice, the mayor proudly evicted several Romany families from their slum dwellings and had them bulldozed down before the families could move back inside or find a lawyer to defend them.... It is common practice for the police and village mayors personally to beat Roma at the police station and in the town hall. I have interviewed scores of Roma in Slovakia who have been beaten by the local authorities but are afraid to report it.....Romanies are being evicted from town and city centres and forced to live in slum dwellings and in some cases even in caves."

The January 1997 report by the European Roma Rights Center revealed repeated violent police raids on Roma communities, arrests without charges, police beatings of children, women and the elderly; the use of electric shock prods, knives and machine guns by police officers during raids and interrogations. A particularly high instance of police violence (as well as police and municipal complicity with skinhead violence) is reported from Eastern Slovakia, the district which many of the asylum seekers have fled. In Jarovnice, north-east of Michalovce, a one year old girl was beaten on her feet, tied up and hung by the hair during a three-hour raid. The Mayor of Jarovnice was seen pointing out Romany homes to the police immediately before the raid. In Kosice, 50 kilometres from Michalovce, the evening newspaper carried a statement from skinheads thanking the police for their co-operation.

The Slovak National Party was a partner in the ruling coalition until September. It espouses an extreme nationalist programme, is opposed to all concessions to minority rights and its leader Jan Slota has made repeated speeches against the Roma both in parliament and through the media. On 21st July 1995, 17 year old Mario Goral had been beaten and then burned alive at the former site of a Gypsy pogrom in World War II. The boy died of his burns ten days later. On 23rd August, Jan Slota of the Slovak National Party stated on Slovak National Radio: " I love roast meat Gypsy-style very much, but I'd prefer more meat and less Gypsies".

Roma in Slovakia are being evicted not only from their places of work and then from public spaces such as restaurants and shops, but from their homes in towns. A growing trend is for a town to pass ordinances forbidding Roma to come inside the city limits. After expulsion from the towns, the next ambition (often stated) is expulsion of Romanies from the country.

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