Appeal of Solidarity for the Rudari Romani Community of Rome

 

From many years 250's Romani Rudari from the village of Via dei Gordiani (from whom about one hundred children) struggle for surviving in hard and inhuman conditions, living in small hovels, near a dump, homely heated;
there's only a fountain, and the precarious hygienic conditions bring about the diffusion of pathologies that infect children above all.
Since four years the municipality of Rome and the regional government have acknownledged the home right for this people; with the company owner of the field they have studied a plan of urbanisation for the reclamation of the WHOle area.
Besides, the building of the new village will promote coexistence of the Roma people with others citizens in the district, and the realization of a big park near the village.
But now delays and fears of the administrators risk to make a failure of a project that will increase the value of the presence of Roma people on the territory instead of confine them in a ghetto.
So the Romani and associations that thake care of this project ask your solidarity, sending a message by mail to the municipality of Rome so that the plan receive the signature as soon as possible.
Here the proposal of a mail to send to the mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli
(Campidoglio@comune.roma.it):

What are you waiting for?
What about your social commitments?
What about deliberation that will actualise the project of the village for
the Romani people of Via dei Gordiani?
We can't wait no more. We need heated houses whit water, facilities,
and everythings that due to us.
For this reason we ask you to approve the plan definitively before the
electoral expiry of 16 april 2000.

Info: Coordinamento Cittadino per Via dei Gordiani
gordiani@hotmail.com

Text of the letter sent by the ERRC to Italian Prime Minister Mr. Massimo D'Alema to express concern at group expulsion of Roma from Italy.

 

Honourable Prime Minister D'Alema,

The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public interest law organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and provides legal defence in cases of human rights abuse, is deeply concerned about reports of group deportations of Roma from Italy.

According to media reports, eyewitness testimony provided to the ERRC and eyewitness testimony provided to the Italian non-governmental organisation ARCI, in the early morning hours of March 3, 2000, more than 400 municipal police officers, carabinieri-- police reporting to the Ministry of Defence-- and military entered the municipal "camp for nomads" of Tor de' Cenci on the outskirts of Rome. In an unannounced raid, all of the inhabitants of the camp were detained and subjected to checks. Those Roma who had valid permits issued by local police-- reportedly 98 out of 210 persons in the camp-- were detained and brought to a nearby camp at Via Carucci, approximately fifteen kilometres from the camp at Tor de' Cenci, also on the edge of Rome. Those Roma who did not have valid permits-- reportedly 112 individuals in total-- were detained and taken to the airport in two police buses. The Roma were taken into the airport through a back entrance, apparently so that the expulsion would not attract public attention. At least fifty-six of these were loaded onto a military aircraft at Fiumicino, an airport operated by Ministry of the Interior. The plane departed from Rome for Sarajevo, Bosnia, at 2:55 PM. Among those Roma expelled were minors. According to ARCI, at least two Roma, 16-year-old Ms L.J., were sent to Bosnia without their parents, in contravention of Italian law. Officials dismantled the Tor de' Cenci camp, in the process destroying property belonging to Roma. Journalists and monitors were not allowed to witness the operation, neither the breakdown of the camp, nor the deportation from the airport.Referring to the Roma concerned as "nomads", Mayor of Rome Mr Franceso Rutelli stated in a faxed press release dated March 6 that the operation had been "successful" and that police removed "nomads involved in illegal activities."

Another operation reportedly took place at the Casilino 700 camp, also in Rome, at approximately 1:00 AM in the night of March 3-4. According to witnesses, a squad of police and carabinieri violently entered the camp. Officials reportedly broke windows and used abusive physical force while detaining individuals, as well as insulting the ethnic origins of Roma in the camp. Approximately thirty Roma from the upper right zone of Casilino-- known to be the "Bosnian" area of camp-- were detained and deported on a military plane at an unknown time. Police and municipal officials refused to provide the ERRC with any information on either the raids, the detentions, or the group deportations.

Police reportedly returned to the camp at Via Carucci on March 4 at approximately 1:30 PM and detained a further number of Roma. Most of these detainees were subsequently released. However, the whereabouts of five or six of them were not known as of March 6. Officials have not provided the public with any information with respect to the March 4 detentions.

Honourable Prime Minister D'Alema, the collective expulsion of aliens is in contravention of Article 4 of Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights. Discriminatory treatment additionally violates international legal provisions to which Italy is a party including Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Articles 2 and 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The expulsions are particularly deplorable in light of the United Nations' Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination's strongly worded March 1999 criticism of Italian discriminatory practice against Roma. The Committee particularly noted "the apparent lack of appropriate training for law enforcement officials and other public officials regarding the provisions of the Convention."

The ERRC urges your office first of all to provide the public with an explanation as to the legal grounds for the action and to condemn forthwith policies targeting Roma for group expulsion from Italy. The Italian government should provide transportation back to Italy to those persons expelled on March 3 and 4. The ERRC additionally urges your office to initiate thorough investigation into allegations that officers used excessive force while detaining individuals for expulsion and destroyed property belonging to Roma, and to punish strictly officers guilty of abuse. We kindly request to be informed of the results of any such investigations and of any disciplinary measures taken.

Sincerely,

Dimitrina Petrova
Executive Director

Persons wishing to express similar concerns are urged to contact the pertinent Italian authorities at the following contacts:

Prime Minister Mr Massimo D'Alema
Fax: +39 06 6798648

Minister Internal Affairs Mr Enzo Bianco
Fax: +39 06 46549534

Minister of Defence Honourable Professor Sergio Mattarella
Fax: +39 06 4885756

Foreign Minister Mr Lamberto Dini
Fax: +39 06 36912092

Mayor of Rome Mr Franceso Rutelli
Fax: +39 06 67102175
Persons wishing to express similar concerns are urged to contact the
pertinent Italian authorities at the following contacts:

Prime Minister Mr Massimo D'Alema
Fax: +39 06 6798648

Minister Internal Affairs Mr Enzo Bianco
Fax: +39 06 46549534

Minister of Defence Honourable Professor Sergio Mattarella
Fax: +39 06 4885756

Foreign Minister Mr Lamberto Dini
Fax: +39 06 36912092

Mayor of Rome Mr Francesco Rutelli
Fax: +39 06 67102175

REPORT CONCERNING THE ROM EVICTION FROM THE TOR DE’ CENCI CAMP-ROME

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

ARCI Solidarity Lazio, is an Association that specializes on social promotion that has carried out since 1992 a series of activities in favor of the Rom community present in Rome.

The Association manages since 1996, for the Assessorship of Educative Politics for the Municipality of Rome, a program of insertion into the school system of minors that come from numerous Rom communities around the capital, among which we find the one of "Khorakhane’ Cergarija" located near the Tor de’ Cenci Camp, which is composed of Rom belonging to the Muslim religion originating from the Bosnian city of Vlasenica. Numerous households have started to arrive in Rome since the beginning of the 1980’s, others have reached Rome since 1992 because they were running away from the war that had exploded in Bosnia, and particularly caused by the occupation of Valasenica from the Serbian and Bosnian militias.

After the end of the war, the peace treaty of Dayton has divided the country into two ethnic "entities" and Vlasenica remained under the control of the Bosnian Serbs, which as a result now belongs to the territory of the " Republika Srpska".

The houses that once belonged to the Rom community, to this day are occupied by ethnic Serbs refugees that have fled the territories that are controlled today by the "Bosnia Herzegovina Federation" overseen by Muslims and Croats.

THE ROMAN EVENTS

Around 1:30 a.m. between the 2d and the 3d of March 2000, the Tor de’ Cenci Camp has been cleared by a joint police operation that has seen a large contingent of police agents from the Roman Police Headquarters (400 men in total were deployed according to what has been reported the 4th of March by the Press Bureau). Such operation was mandated by the Provincial Committee for public order and safety, an administrative body of coordination presided by the Prefect of Rome, and to which adhere the Mayor and Police Headquarters of Rome.

The testimonies released by the children and adults from the camp explicitly refer to the excessive use of force and episodes of physical violence carried out by the agents during the clearing operations of the camp.

Following the operation, according to what has been reported by the press bureau, presumably on informations provided by the same Chief of Police of Rome, 114 people were stopped and transferred to the police station for verification purposes.

In the hours that followed, agents of the judicial police carried out the identification of the persons under investigation with the help of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Consul that purposely arrived from Milan.

At the end of the proceedings 82 people were released but the remaining 32, some of which were in possession of a pass that had been given to them by the Bosnian Consul, underwent the expulsion proceedings from the Italian territory, which implied that they would be immediately escorted to the border.

The Rom were therefore escorted at the Fiumicino Airport, where an aircraft had been rented for that purpose from a civil airline with funds from the Internal Ministry.

According to what was reported by the press, 56 Rom were embarked on that flight, due to the fact that on that same night a similar operation, even though on smaller scale if compared to the one inflicted at Tor de’ Cenci, was carried out on the Camp of "Casilino 700".

The flight took off from Fiumicino at 14:50, and has landed at the Sarajevo Airport at around 17:00.

Of the 32 Rom that where evicted from the Tor de’ Cenci Camp and subsequently repatriated, 12 were adults and 20 were minors. Of these last 20 individuals, 6 were enrolled and attended public Italian schools, and 4 were already enrolled in the next school year. Furthermore, 15 of these minors were born in Italy and 1 in France, but the majority of them had never been to Bosnia.

Among the people that were repatriated we need to indicate a few specific cases:

1) Serbo Hrustic: A child born in Paris 14 years ago, that was living at the Tor de’ Cenci Camp with his grandmother Hajria Hrustic 67 years old, who was deported as well. His father has been detained and his mother, who now lives with another man in the Camp of Vicolo Savini, does not take care of him since a long time. However, it does not result that there is a specific legal document that gives to the grandmother the legal custody of the child. This is the reason why the execution of the deportation has in fact only produced the separation of the child, a minor, from those that still are his legal guardians.

2) Sanela Sedjovic: A 16 year old girl that was repatriated with her child Seli Hrustic who was born 15 before the events took place. The father of the child is in possession of a regular permit that grants him residence in Italy, and in fact he is among the 78 people that were released after having been controlled by the authorities. Therefore, in this case as well we find a minor that has been separated by the person that holds the rights of custody on the child.

3) Behara Omerovic: A 19 year old girl that is on her eight month of pregnancy, has been deported with her daughter Madalena Hrustic, who is 1 year old.

4) Mirsad Omerovic: A 15 year old kid that at the time of the transfer to the police station was separated from his mother Omerovic Devleta. After the police concluded the identification, the mother was released but the child was mistakenly identified by the Bosnian Consul as the son of Omerovic Sevala, whose name was written on her pass, but in reality she was only his aunt

He was therefore deported with her.

THE EVENTS IN BOSNIA

After landing at Sarajevo, the 32 Rom were left without any form of assistance from the part of the Bosnian authorities, and obviously nothing was done by the Italian Embassy there.

Not having any shelter in Sarajevo, 29 of these Rom tried to reach their old homes in Vlasenica. There, they were physically assaulted by the new occupants of their homes, and found safety in Kladanj, in the house that belonged to the mother of one of them, Osman Omerovic. The details of what had happened were communicated by phone to the staff of the ARCI on the morning of Saturday the 4th of March. A family composed of 8 people, separated from the group of the 29 and reached the house of some relatives in Gracanica.

Considering the gravity of the situation in which the deported Rom have found themselves, from Rome they immediately alerted the ICS (Italian Society for Solidarity) office in Sarajevo and the ONG which is an organization for international cooperation to which ARCI Solidarity Lazio adheres, and of which the directors of ARCI are the co-founders.

The person in charge of the ICS office in Sarajevo has visited Kladanj in the early afternoon of Monday 6th of March and has reported that:

  1. The Rom originating from Tor de’ Cenci that had found shelter in Kladanj in the house of Osman Omerovic were 29 in total, 14 of whom were under the age of 14 (refer to the attached listing N.2);
  2. Their physical and hygenic conditions are critical, since they have to survive in only two rooms, they do not have food, money or clothes.
  3. Some of them still show the wounds inflicted in Vlasenica
  4. Only 4 of them were given the expulsion notice by the Office of Foreign Affairs at the Police Headquarters in Rome, 13 of them are only in possession of a pass handed to them by the Bosnian Consul in Italy.

At the present time, the ICS Office in Sarajevo, is trying to contact the international agencies in order to organize some form of assistance. On Wednesday the 8th of March, some officials belonging to the Protection Unit of the UNHCR Office in Sarajevo visited Kladanj to evaluate the situation and interviewed the group. It is important to keep in mind that on the aircraft there were some Rom originating from the Camp of Casilino 700; apparently they were 19. There is no official news on their location after disembarking in Bosnia. According to some information collected, but not yet verified, they should be located at Llias-Sarajevo, presumably in the houses of friends and relatives.

 

CONCLUDING STATEMENTS

The opinions of ARCI and ICS over the events that have occurred are as follows:

  1. In the clearing process of the camp, there has been an excessive use of force by the police forces, especially towards the children. This behavior implies an obvious responsibility of the official/s in charge at the Police headquarters in Rome for organizing and coordinating such operation.
  2. The expulsions have been carried out in flagrant violation of the Legislative Decree of the 25th of July 1998 N.286 "Sole document for the dispositions concerning the discipline towards immigration and the norms over the conditions of the foreigners" and in particular:

1) General case for all the expelled (phrase in bold):

violation of the art. 19 comma 1 ("In no case a foreigner can be expelled and repatriated if he/she runs the risk of persecution because of race, sex, language, citizenship, religion, political beliefs or because of social or personal conditions")

  1. In the case of Serbo Hrustic, Sanela Sedjovic and Mirsad Omerovic (phrase in bold):
  2. violation of the art. 19 comma 1 ("It is not allowed to expel, (…) of any foreigner under the age of eighteen years of age, except for the right to follow the expelled parent or legal guardian")
  3. In the case of Behara Omerovic e Sanela Sejdovic (written in bold): violation of the art. 19 comma 2 letter d ("The expulsion is not allowed, (…) of a women in a pregnant state or in the six months following the birth of a child to whom she is giving care")

Furthermore, considering that in the light of what has been verified by an ICS representative, only 4 people have received the official expulsion notice, which implies a violation of art. 13 comma 3 ("the expulsion is disposed for all cases with the appropriate decree") and comma 7 ("the expulsion decree (…) along with any other document concerning the entry, residence and the expulsion will be communicated to the interested party along with an appropriate translation to a language to him7her familiar, or when impossible, in French, English or Spanish") A violation of such act would be aggravated if accomplished with the intent of jeopardizing the right of the expelled to legally recur against the measure.

  1. The expulsions were carried out in such a manner that violated art.4 of the additional protocol N.4 that was added to the European Convention of Human Rights that forbids the collective expulsion of foreigners.
  2. The procedures of identification carried out by the Bosnian Consul have been superficial and incorrect, as was demonstrated in the case of Mirsad Omerovic and because on the passes that were handed out to some of the people expelled, the place specified as the last residence in Bosnia was Kladanj instead of Vlasenica
  3. In the events that took place concerning the clearing of the camp and the expulsions, there is a clear and great political responsibility of the Mayor of Rome in that he is a member of the Committee for public order and security that have ordered the operation, and because of the strong declarations he released to the press over the events that took place.

The responsibilities of the Town Council and of the Police have been further aggravated considering the censorship expressed from the CERD over the treatment reserved for the Rom in Italy. Furthermore, the execution of the expulsion according with the modalities used, is obviously an irresponsible act that has triggered in Vlasenica an episode of ethnic clashes that has compromised the efforts of the international institutions present in Bosnia, whose main purpose was to ease the tensions, allowing through the cooperation with the authorities of the different ethnic entities the return of some of the refugees to their original homes even in areas that are not ethnically homogeneous.

It is evident that similar episodes put at risk the international prestige of Italy, compromising its image of a country that is respectful of human rights, and guarantor of both internal and international laws, and therefore endowed with equitable and responsible foreign politics.

At the present time, the ARCI in Italy is concentrating its efforts to guarantee an adequate legal support for the presentation of the appeals against the expulsions, while on the other hand the efforts in Bosnia, through the ICS structures and the close collaboration with the UNHCR, aims at providing an immediate and efficient humanitarian assistance to the people expelled for the period, which it is hoped will be as short as possible, that separates them with their return in Italy.

We would like to remind how among the associations that have dedicated their time and efforts to this cause by helping with the legal matters, with the sensitization of the public opinion, and the collection of funds in favor of the expelled, there is the AGESCI (Association Guides and Catholic Scouts of Italy).

Rome 10th of March 2000

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