Roma Killed in Romania
07 February 2004
According to a press release of the Petroşani-based Romani organisation Asociatia "Tumende" Valea Jiului (Tumende), on November 14, 2003, Ms Olga David, a 42-year-old Romani woman, died in the Petroşani Emergency Hospital after a guard from the security company S.C. Protector International SRL savagely beat her on November 3, 2003, in the west central Romanian village Valea Jiului. At around 5:00 PM, Ms David and her 12-year-old niece, T.R., were gathering coal for heating at a local mine when they were caught by security personnel guarding the mine. On December 2, 2003, the Bucharest-based Romani organisation Romani CRISS published testimonial evidence it gathered on November 22 and 23. According to the testimony of T.R., as she and Ms David were leaving the mine, a security guard and two other men approached them and asked what they were doing there. The security guard proceeded to put a black mask over his head then hit T.R. hard in the face, causing her to fall down. T.R. reported that she got up to run away and the security guard approached Ms David. T.R. stopped when she heard Ms David scream and turned and saw her lying on the ground and the security guard hitting her on the head with a truncheon. At the point, T.R. yelled at the security guard to stop hitting Ms David, and he ordered her to return so he could hit her again. T.R. ran to a mine employee and asked him to intervene, to which he replied he would not get involved. Then she left to inform Ms David's husband of the attack.
Ms David's husband, Mr C. David, went directly to the mine with T.R. to find his wife. A security guard led them to where Ms David was lying unconscious on the ground. According to Mr David's testimony, he saw his wife lying on the ground with one arm under her body with her clothing pulled up, revealing her stomach, and ran to her, screaming, "You killed my wife!" Mr David and T.R. brought Ms David into the guard's booth and saw that she had bruises on her back, a swollen eye and bruises on her chin. T.R. called an ambulance, which brought Ms David to the hospital. According to Mr David, that night, doctor's performed brain surgery on his wife after which she was in a coma until she died.
According to Romani CRISS, on November 25, 2003, the Petroşani local daily newspaper Matinal published statements issued by S.C. Protector International SRL. According to the daily, Mr N.G., Director of the Petroşani branch of S.C. Protector International SRL, stated, "Based on security plans approved by the County Police Inspectorate [...] no person has the right to be on the location without permission. Moreover, no person has the right to trespass on the grounds, under any circumstances. This is exactly what happened: A person trespassed on the grounds of the coal mine; the security guard, being lone in the presence of a number of 'delinquents', reacted out of fear and hit powerfully with a truncheon. [...] The firm has no fault, at least in my opinion."
On November 28, 2003, a roundtable discussion organised by Tumende and the Roma Social Democratic Party was attended by representatives of Romani CRISS, Petroşani's Mayor's Office, local gendarmes, Hunedoara County Police Inspectorate, Petroşani local police and S.C. Protector International SRL. The topic of the roundtable was the death of Ms David, as well as regular abuses committed against the local Romani community by S.C. Protector International SRL. According to Tumende, S.C. Protector International SRL security guards often arbitrarily search the homes of local Roma late in the evening or early in the morning, behaving violently or threatening violence. Tumende maintains that local non-Roma also take coal from the mine for heating, but they are not subjected to such illegal and abusive treatment. Within one week of Ms David's death, the case was with the General Prosecutor's Office in Bucharest.
In an earlier case, according to the electronic news source Roma News of July 14, 2003, Mr Costica Talaban was accused of fatally shooting Mr Ion Condei, a 26-year-old Romani man, at around 1:00 AM on July 13, 2003, in the village of Bălăneasa in Bacău County. Roma News quoted Police Chief Florin Butucaru as stating that Mr Talaban had caught Mr Condei stealing hay from his property and shot him. According to Police Chief Butucaru, Mr Talaban allegedly warned Mr Condei to stop but, when he ran, Mr Talaban fatally shot him in the head. The Bacău-based Romani organisation RomStar Bacău informed the ERRC that, according to witness testimonies it had gathered, Mr Condei had been in a local pub with a Romanian man named Mr Vasile Munteanu earlier that evening until they took a horse to graze in a field. Ms Nadia Dinu, Mr Condei's 26-year-old Romani girlfriend, testified that she believed Mr Talaban had beaten Mr Condei before he shot him in the neck. According to Ms Dinu, Mr Condei's medical certificate listed broken ribs, a fractured skull and a collapsed lung, in addition to the gunshot wound in the neck, amongst his injuries. Mr Busuioc Gheorghe, a 58-year-old Romani man, testified that Mr Talaban had been terrorising the local Romani community for years.
(Roma News, Romani CRISS, RomStar Bacău, Tumende)
