Some European officials use virus as a cover to target Roma

In Bulgaria, Roma communities were sprayed with disinfectant from crop dusters this spring as coronavirus cases surged in country. In Slovakia, ir vills were only ones where army conducted testing. And across Central and Eastern Europe, reports of police using excessive force against Roma spiked as officers were deployed to enforce lockdowns in ir towns.

Human rights activists and experts say local officials in several countries with significant Roma populations have used pandemic to unlawfully target mirity group, which is Europe's largest and has faced centuries of severe discrimination. With COVID-19 cases w resurging across continent, some experts fear repression will return, too.

To make matters worse, activists say such discrimination often draws little opposition from or Europeans and Roma are reluctant to speak about it, fearing repercussions.

One afteron, Azime Ali Topchu, 48, said police-enforced lockdown of her vill in Burgas, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast, made her family “really sad.”

“It was hard. Hard. For my whole family to go to work — for my husband and son y had to go, fill in papers, so y could go through police checks,” she said, as her three grandchildren played near piles of neatly stacked wood.

But Topchu, who lives in a one-story brick house next to her son and daughter-in-law, was unwilling to go much furr than that. streets of ir vill were sprayed with disinfectant — though t from sky — several months earlier.

Topchu said she considered disinfecting “something that had to be done.”

But or Roma vills — in Yambol, Kyustendil and elsewhere in Bulgaria — were showered with thousands of gallons of disinfectant from helicopters or planes usually used to fertilize crops in March and April, according to local authorities and Bulgarian Roma activists.

“That was clearly racist because it was only done in Roma neighbourhoods,” said Radoslav Stoyav of Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group. “ broader mess that was sent to n-Roma population was that Roma are dangerous."

Roma people are descended from tribes in rrn India, and centuries of persecution and marginalization have left m some of poorest and least educated people in Europe. Kwn pejoratively as “gipsies,” many live in segregated neighbourhoods, often with limited access to electricity, running water and health care. Many face discrimination in getting jobs, getting medical care and have a shorter aver lifespan than n-Roma.

stringent measures used against Roma communities come even though big outbreak was ever reported among m — and echo way some governments have used pandemic as cover for repressive tactics. Many European countries do t track coronavirus cases among Roma, but Slovak officials reported at end of summer that re had been 179 cases in Roma districts, out of a population of more than 500,000.

In May, two U.N. human rights advocates issued an open letter calling on Bulgarian government to suspend its pandemic-related police operations in Roma neighbourhoods and to “stop hate speech” against group after one nationalist party leader described communities as “nests of infection.”

Officials in or European countries have also targeted Roma: A mayor in rrn Moldova blamed ir communities for spreading virus, while a Ukrainian city official in Iva-Frankivst instructed police to evict all Roma from town. This is t limited to Eastern Europe: mayor of a vill outside Paris called on residents to contact French government “as soon as you see a caravan circulating,” referring to Roma.

In a recent report, European Roma Rights Centre documented 20 instances of what it called disproportionate force by police against Roma in five countries — ting that was an unusually high number. In one video on social media, a Romanian officer appeared to repeatedly press a knee into a handcuffed man as he was dragged following arrest of several people for flouting virus restrictions. Elsewhere in country, group reported police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse a group of Roma, including children, who had climbed on top of an apartment block during lockdown.

Slovak authorities are investigating allegations that an officer beat five Roma children with a baton and threatened to shoot m after y were found playing outside ir vill, breaching national quarantine.

“It is unacceptable for police to use force against children,” said Maria Patakyova, Slovakia’s public defender of rights, head of an independent body that aims to uphold human rights. “t even pandemic can be a reason to use disproportionate policing methods.”

Last month, Patykova’s office concluded that quarantines in three Roma communities unfairly infringed ir right to free movement, though regional leaders who imposed measures have dismissed findings.

Numerous Roma activists and ors also raised concerns when Slovak soldiers were brought in to conduct COVID-19 testing in some Roma vills and patrolled neighbourhoods armed with automatic rifles.

Juraj Jando, who also works for rights defender's office, said despite this show of force, government failed to help communities meaningfully fight virus. For instance, people who came into contact with someone who was infected and wanted to stay in a government-run isolation facility had to pay 13 euros ($15) per day to cover ir food expenses — a sum that would be beyond many in Roma communities. Authorities were also often quick to seal off entire Roma neighbourhoods even when case numbers were below threshold y had set for such actions.

Petar Lazarov, a spokesman for Slovakia’s Interior Ministry, said all actions taken were in accordance with country’s public health laws.

In Bulgaria, authorities’ use of rmal drones to measure temperatures of entire Roma neighbourhoods has raised surveillance concerns.

“This wouldn’t have happened in a white, middle-class neighbourhood, and it shouldn’t have happened to Roma eir,” said Jonathan Lee of European Roma Rights Centre.

Krassimir Brumbarov, a Roma health worker in Burgas, where rmal drones were used, ted that people were also angered by nearly constant police presence in vill.

mayor’s office in Burgas declined to respond to repeated questions from AP about why such measures were taken.

As in Slovakia, Lee said Bulgarian authorities did little to help Roma protect mselves from virus, ting that at height of epidemic in April, about 500 Romani residents in Tsarevo were left without water for 10 days.

Ognyan Isaev, a Roma activist in Sofia, Bulgarian capital, said he worried that discriminatory measures might be reintroduced if pandemic worsens, ting that local authorities who implemented m have faced little pushback.

“Next time," said Isaev, "it could be even worse.”

(Im: AP)