gipsy crime in SI

Dear Sirs,

We are reporting the discrimination in Republic of Slovenia against the citizens of specific areas of Slovenia, which is, in spite of our appeals, not being solved. We are looking for your serious approach for non-discrimination, as we practically exhausted all relevant possibilities in Slovenia in order to stimulate the preparation of sufficient programmes leading into resolving the situation. There is a discrimination against the citizens that live around the Roma villages and against the Roma people.

Reasoning:

For the past five years the council of local community Bučna vas has been actively trying to solve the Roma issues. We have the biggest Roma village, Brezje – Žabjak, in this area of Slovenia. The lack of vision for solving these issues daily deteriorates the chances of co- existence. The Roma village was built on an abandoned dump, which was used until 1982, afterwards it was covered with soil and as early as in 1985 the village was build on it (It’s good enough for the Roma???), so the houses are sinking and cracking. Notwithstanding the given promisies, that the village will not expand, it is still expanding rapidly. So do the related problems. The owners of the forest got their timber felled, the houses are illegaly built on the property of our citizens and even on the public property, there are damages on the fields, the stockpiling of the several different waste posiones the soil and groundwater, the daily waste-burning (plastic materials, cables,..) is poluting the air, the shootings, robberies and physical attacks are causing a public danger. The police are helpless due to the lack of competence; the criminal sentences are mostly useless, as they are not recovered. The citizens are desparate. At the beginning of our manadate we were trying to get some answeres from the competent institutions regarding the socilisation of the Roma people. Since we realised the lack of vision of the competent authorities we hosted a public tribune, that was attended by practicaly all the mayors of Dolenjska and Bela Krajina, that are facing the mentioned issues, the responsible ministers prefered to avoid the tribune. We even published the scenario of the tribune, so there is a material proof of our efforts to found a decent solution. Sadly, we realised that the situation is not improving, therefore we started to warn about it with the protest marches. Some 500 citizens that are facing the mentioned problems have protested in front of the Govement palace in Ljubljana. Additionaly we hosted two public tribunes, that were finally attended by the ministers as a result of our protests. Again we appealed for the solutions, we raised the criminal complaint gainst he competent authorities because of the lack of their actions.

Since we have realised, that there is no progress we have initiatived ourseleves even more trough the Governement Office for Nationalities, for resolving the Roma issues in the manner that we would help a familly from the Roma village Brezje that wanted to move out to another location and start a normal life. Governement Office for Nationalities and Roma association have given the founds to our local community and we have also had an agreement from the Roma family that wanted to move. But then the whole scope of the problems and discrimination came out. The real estate agency and the owner of the real estate where the Roma familly should move in didn’t want to sell the real estate directly to the Roma, therefore the signature of the contract of sale should be the commune, since the local community by the law and its statute could not buy the real estate. But the city commune of Novo mesto did not want to do that, nevertheless of the many appeal. It even passed a dicriminate decision, that the local community of Bučna vas needs to, if it wants the cooperation of city commune of Novo mesto, gain an agreement of the other commune, that they agree with the lodging of the Roma familly. Such a displacement term does not apply for the other Slovene citizens. Since we have realised, that there is no will to accept Roma anywhere we have returned the funds to Roma association. We have concluded there really is discrimination in our society, as we were not heart wanting to improve the situation so that we could live according to the right given by Slovenian constitution and as well against Roma for whom the competent authorities can not find other locations but those, they already live in.

Slovenia does not have any programme for solving the Roma issues. We passed the law of Roma community, but it is useless. It has increased the disputes between Roma from Bela Krajina that don’t support the law and the Roma from the rest of Slovenia. In the Commune councils Roma representatives keep resigning, as they are the subject of manipulation, they do not have enough knowledge and because of all the other issues. The state only picture Roma in the existing villages that are becoming reservates from which the Roma people can not escape. The programme is only for the regulation of existing villages. The issues that are rising with the co-existence of such a huge Roma community are well known, but only the citizens of the local community care about it, since it affects them the most. There was an attack with a bomb in Dobruška vas, in Ambrus the local citizens displaced the Roma familly, as it caused several problems. In spite of one year search the family is still in the facility that was ment to be their home only temporary. All the other locations were not possible as the citizens didn’t want to accept them due to their bad reputation or were turned down by the “fastidiousness” of the Roma family. As seen from the attached document, regarding the buying of homes for Roma people that do not want to live in the Roma villages, the Roma association does not want to cooperate in the solving of the Roma issues in Dolenjska.

Due to that kind of approach on the solving of Roma issues we may expect even bigger issues. Who will be responsible for them? The local citizens will have enough of it and they are going to impose their own way of solution for the issues (new Ambrus or even worse); Roma people that are limited in their rights or the gubvernement of Slovenia that does not prepare the suitable programmes for their socialisation in the community.


Novo mesto, 3.1.2008

Vice-president of KS Bučna vas,
Silvo Mesojedec

President of KS Bučna vas ,
Matjaž Kumer

p.s.
We are expecting the denial of the discrimination. To all of them we will forward the information regarding at least ten Roma famillies that want to move out of the Roma villages due to their inner disputes. By execution of their request to incorporate into society they should prove us wrong.