Roma Rights 2, 2002: Fortress Europe

10 July 2002

The ERRC’s first publication ever addressed the theme of “Fortress Europe” – restrictive laws, policies and practices in Europe aimed at or resulting in the exclusion of non-citizens. Divide and Deport: Roma and Sinti in Austria, published in September 1996, examined Roma rights issues generally in Austria, but was particularly preoccupied with Roma who had arrived in Austria in recent decades, since as a result among other things of the Holocaust, these comprised an estimated 5/6 of Austria’s Romani population. Divide and Deport described in detail the legal and administrative scaffolding which, taken as a whole and in combination with a powerful and discursive local hostility to “Gypsies”, was rendering life with dignity close to impossible for the greater part of Austria’s Roma. Divide and Deport quotes a 1995 study indicating that the three major German-speaking countries – Austria, Germany and Switzerland – had particularly problematic records with respect to the integration of foreigners, more so than other European states. Would such a statement be true today?

• Fortress Europe (Claude Cahn)

• Migration, Asylum and Roma Rights Policy: A 3-Part Basis for Good Governance 

• Forced Exit: ERRC Legal Action in Italian Expulsion Case (Esther Farkas) 

• Expelled Roma in Former Yugoslavia Testify (Tatjana Peric) 

• The Borders of Legal Orders: Challenging Exclusion of Foreigners (Elspeth Guild) 

• Roma Under Hungary's  (Lilla Farkas)

• Bulgaria * Croatia * Czech Republic * France * Germany * Greece * Hungary * Italy * Kosovo * Lithuania * Macedonia * Moldova * Portugal * Romania * Russia * Serbia and Montenegro * Slovakia 

• European Court Finds Bulgarian Authorities Responsible for Roma Death (Nikolai Gouginski) 

• Workshop Establishing an Inter-Ukrainian Association of Roma Rights Activists 

• Grants awarded

• Memorandum on Human Rights Education Department (Prepared for the ERRC Board of Directors Meeting on May 25-26, 2002) 

• Konvencia Pala O Statuso Našalde manušengo (Romani language translation of the substantive paragraphs of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees "1951 Geneva Convention") and its 1967 New York Protocol) 

• The First Romani Mayor in the United Kingdom: Inaugural Speech of Mr Charles Smith  

• A Note on the Meaning of "Underclass" (Gail Kligman, János Ladanyi, and Iván Szelényi) 

• Inequality and the Struggle for Roma Rights (James Whooley)  

• Fortress Italy (Kathryn D. Carlisle)

• Chronicle