European Roma Rights Centre

Stanislav Tomáš died on a hot summer day in June 2021. An officer knelt on his neck for over four minutes. At no point did any of them check his pulse, or administer medical aid.

He was pronounced dead at 3:45 PM.

What happened next tells you everything you need to know about how Czech institutions treat Romani lives. Before the autopsy was released, or an investigation even started, the Prime Minister thanked the officers. The Interior Minister gave them "full support." The police tweeted: "No Czech Floyd."

Before he was even buried, Czech authorities and Czech media had already decided his guilt and pardoned the officers who murdered him.

The ERRC and Forum for Human Rights stuck with this case long after the news cameras had departed, Konexe provided litigant care long after many others had abandoned the case and abandoned the family. Today, after five years of legal activism, the European Court issued a brave judgment finding violations of the right to life, inhuman treatment, AND discrimination. It said "institutional racism" exists within Czech law enforcement.

But we want more. There has still been no formal investigation opened into any of the officers in the Czech Republic. We think this is necessary in light of the judgment, and also call on the Czech Government to reform its police oversight body, adopt clear guidelines on prone positioning to prevent positional asphyxia, implement mandatory training on unconscious bias and anti-Roma racism, and ensure body cameras are activated at every intervention to protect Romani lives from an institutionally racist police force.

Read the full press release here https://www.errc.org/press-releases/european-court-rules-czech-republic-responsible-for-police-murder-of-romani-man-stanislav-tomas
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An important ruling from the Council of Europe: Sweden must ensure access to healthcare for all vulnerable EU migrants, regardless of their residence status or ethnicity.

Congratulations to Amnesty International and Médecins du Monde for bringing this complaint and securing this vital decision from the European Committee of Social Rights.

The European Committee of Social Rights found that Sweden's practices — denying care, billing full costs, and creating a "chilling effect" that drove people away from seeking medical help — violated the right to health protection under the European Social Charter.

The ruling specifically highlighted indirect discrimination against Romani migrants, who make up the majority of those affected.

Full story here: https://www.errc.org/news/council-of-europe-rights-body-rules-that-sweden-must-ensure-access-to-healthcare-for-all-vulnerable-eu-migrants

BREAKING: A 14-year-old Romani boy was lured to a park in Skopje, North Macedonia, where he was attacked by three adult men armed with a firearm and knife. He was stabbed seven times and left unconscious. Despite the severity of the attack, police have opened a criminal complaint for "violence against a child".

The ERRC has formally written to the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office and Ministry of Interior demanding "attempted murder" charges and a hate-crime investigation.

Full press release: https://www.errc.org/press-releases/errc-calls-for-attempted-murder-charge-after-14-year-old-romani-boy-stabbed-7-times-and-left-for-dead-in-north-macedonia

Recent European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) field monitoring in Slovakia confirms what Romani people have known and lived for decades: antigypsyism is embedded in institutions, maintained through inaction, and normalised by political narratives throughout Slovak society.

https://www.errc.org/news/ecri-monitoring-reveals-persistent-anti-roma-racism-and-discrimination-in-slovakia

Their latest monitoring report paints a grim picture across four key areas: weak police accountability for racially motivated violence, continued segregation of Romani children in education, unequal access to healthcare, and hate speech normalised in political discourse with virtually no consequences.

Lack of evidence is not the problem, the absence of political will is. What little improvements there have been through isolated programmes and symbolic commitments over the years are no substitute for structural reform. Governments and institutions must move beyond rhetoric, enforce equality laws, ensure independent oversight, and hold rights abusers accountable.

"What makes Operation ENTOS particularly alarming, beyond its scale and cruelty, is the stark absence of international scrutiny.

The silence from Brussels is deeply troubling. As the EU pushes for stricter border controls, it appears to be turning a blind eye to these policies being weaponised against its own citizens. If this campaign proceeds without condemnation, as it looks set to do, it will set a dangerous blueprint for similar operations across the continent.

The word fascism is sometimes used too loosely these days. But when a state uses its monopoly on violence to treat its own citizens as invaders in their own homes based on ethnicity, it crosses a line. Whether we call this authoritarian drift or something darker, the result is the same: the normalisation of the idea that some lives are disposable and the acceptance of a troubling new norm on the road to anti-democratic politics. In such times, to be silent is not only to be complicit but to be negligent. The price of looking the other way now will be too high for our democracies later, when such tactics inevitably expand to affect more and more people in our society."

Read more in the opinion piece by Jonathan Lee for Al Jazeera.

Greece’s ‘war on Roma’ is Europe’s new blueprint for discrimination Mass raids on Roma communities show how Europe is recasting racial discrimination as crime prevention and public order.