EUROPEAN ROMA RIGHTS CENTER

1386 Budapest 62, P.O. Box 906/93, Hungary
		Phone: (36-1) 413-2200; Fax: (36-1) 413-2201
E-mail: office@errc.org; 
http://errc.org

Memorandum of the European Roma Rights Center concerning the right of Roma to adequate housing in Romania

For consideration by the United Nations Special Rapporteur 
on adequate housing at its mission to Romania, 14-18 January 2002

The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public interest law organisation, respectfully submits this memorandum for consideration by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing at its mission to Romania, 14-18 January 2002. This submission does not undertake a comprehensive analysis of the compliance of the government with the provisions of Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Nor does it offer recommendations concerning changes in law and/or practice which might ensure more effective adherence to the provisions of the ICESCR. Nonetheless, the following memorandum indicates a pattern of human rights violations directed at Roma in regard to the right to adequate housing which appears inconsistent with State Party obligations under the Convention, in particular with respect to those obligations contained in Articles 2, 4, 5 and 11.

The ERRC is an international public interest law organisation, which monitors the human rights situation of Roma in Europe and provides legal defence in cases of abuse. Since its establishment in 1996, the ERRC has undertaken first-hand field research in more than a dozen countries, including Romania, and has disseminated numerous publications, from book-length studies to advocacy letters and public statements. An ERRC monitor is presently stationed in Romania reporting regularly on human rights developments concerning Roma. ERRC publications about Romania and other countries and additional information about the organisation, are available on the Internet at http://www.errc.org. 

In September 2001, the ERRC published its second Country Report on Romania - State of Impunity: Human Rights Abuse of Roma in Romania. Impunity -- an unwritten covenant that actions pertaining to Roma are not governed by the same rules as those for non-Roma -- extends to nearly all spheres of social life in Romania. There is a predominant ethos in Romania that it is possible to violate the rights of Roma because few negative consequences will arise from abusive action; individual perpetrators are shielded by a comprehensive agreement that Roma live beyond the pale of equal treatment. Nowhere is this state of impunity more visibly evident than in the field of access to adequate housing.

Authorities in Romania have recently announced plans to segregate Roma in housing settlements spatially separated from non-Roma. On October 12, 2001, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) announced that two days previously, in the northeastern Romanian town of Piatra-Neamt, several dozen Roma gathered to protest plans of the town to move the local Roma population to an enclosed area outside the town. Subsequent ERRC field research in Piatra-Neamt revealed that on October 9, 2001, Mr Ion Rotaru, mayor of Piatra Neamt, had announced during a broadcast of the private television channel PRO TV, that authorities intended to move local Roma to a structure surrounded by barbed wire fences and guarded by community police patrols and dogs. The site to be used for the ghetto was the former chicken farm of Avicola Company, three kilometres outside Piatra Neamt. Mr Rotaru was quoted in the local electronic and print media as stating that he intended to turn the farm into a ghetto and that those Roma who did not agree to move voluntarily would be forced to move. He later denied that he had used the term "ghetto". The action was reportedly first condoned by members of the national government, but ultimately stopped and condemned by the Prime Minister. Also according to ERRC field research in Piatra Neamt, for the past two years, seventeen families have been living in the stables of the Avicola Company. The families live in one 20 square metre room each, regardless of family size. The rooms have no source of water, no sanitary facilities, and are infested with insects. On October 17, 2001, RFE/RL broadcast that the non-governmental organisation Framework Romani Convention had announced the intention to commence legal proceedings against Piatra Neamt Mayor Ion Rotaru with respect to his plan to segregate Romani citizens of the town. To date, no member of the Piatra Neamt local government has been punished for the attempt to segregate Roma.

Local authorities in other Romanian towns have also attempted to implement segregating policies toward Roma. The Romanian daily newspaper Adevărul reported on March 1, 2001 that the Mayor of Bârlad, a town in the Moldova region of Romania, had announced a plan to build a separate village for the local Roma on the margins of the town. According to Adevărul, the mayor’s plan had a twofold purpose: firstly to promote such a settlement as a cultural village and attract tourists, where each Romani group would have a separate street typical of their traditional profession; secondly, to remove Roma from their current dwellings in the town, where they allegedly “do not live in a civilised manner,” and where they “destroy furniture” and “commit illegal acts.” The Bucharest-based non-governmental organisation Romani CRISS issued a press release on March 1, 2001, in which they warned the mayor that his plan would violate the law. On March 5, 2001, representatives of Romani CRISS had a meeting with the Mayor and other representatives of local authorities in Bârlad, where they agreed that no such segregated settlement would be built. Moreover, it was agreed that instead the local authorities, with the support of local Romani organisations, will not only refurbish the living quarters of the Romani residents but, in addition, provide them with infrastructure and permanently legalise their situation. According to a report by the Romanian media house Mediafax, distributed by RFE/RL on October 17, 2001, local authorities in Romanian towns of Baia Mare and Deva also announced plans to ghettoise Roma.

According to reports by Romanian non-governmental organisations, Romanian authorities regularly engage in forced evictions of Roma. In one case, Romani CRISS reported that on September 26, 2000, at 11 a.m., a police unit from the Bucharest Police Station Number 11 carried out the eviction of twelve Romani families, including children and the infirm, from an apartment building located on 7 Medeleni Street, Sector 3 in Bucharest. During the September 26, 2000 eviction, non-Romani families who also lived in the building were not evicted. According to the testimonies of the victims, Roma evicted had not received notice prior to the police action, nor were they presented with eviction orders by the police. The Romani families were not notified about any follow-up decision of the court ordering their eviction from the apartment building. During the eviction operation, the police reportedly intimidated and harassed the Roma. According to Romani CRISS, five of the Romani families lived in the street until November 1, 2000, when by the permission of the Mayor of Bucharest they were accommodated in an apartment building in the area. The other seven Romani families were, as of November 27, 2000, homeless, and they subsequently reportedly left Bucharest. Also in Bucharest, in spring 1999, police and army troops allegedly evicted approximately forty Romani families illegally residing in the residential block “Hotel Nato II” at 4 Taberei Street, Mănăştur district.

Roma have also recently been threatened with eviction. The daily newspaper 24 ore Mureşene reported on May 10, 2001, for example, that municipal authorities had issued an order to evict the Romani residents of Călăraşilor Street in Târgu Mureş. The reported official reason was that the street was infested with rats. Authorities reportedly threatened the Roma of Călăraşilor Street that the eviction order may be implemented during the night. The eviction was not subsequently carried out. The removal of the Romani families from Călăraşilor street would be particularly unfortunate, as it is the last remaining place in Târgu Mureş where Romani residents live alongside non-Romani, in non-segregated housing, in any significant numbers. On May 31, 2001, the ERRC sent a letter to Mayor Dorin Florea to remind him of his duties under international law to carry out his responsibilities in accordance with the law and without discrimination as to race. The ERRC urged Mayor Florea to officially and publicly remove the threat of eviction from the Romani residents of Călăraşilor Street. The ERRC has never received any response to its letter. 

In another case, in the summer of 1998, local authorities reportedly attempted to remove forcibly a Romani community of 15-20 households in the village of Săcele near Braşov in order to build a tourist area there, with the intention of relocating the Roma to a nearby area at serious risk of flooding. After lobbying by Romani activists, the Roma were allowed to stay in the settlement. According to a Romani organisation based in Braşov, the legal decision ordering Roma to move to the dangerous area was still valid as of June 21, 2001, leaving Roma under the continuous threat of eviction. 

Regular press monitoring of the major national newspapers by the ERRC and Romani CRISS indicated that during 2001, at least three cases of evictions of Roma were reported in the press as taking place per month; Romani CRISS reports that many more evictions were likely taking place, especially outside Bucharest, but not being reported in major newspapers. Some experts told the ERRC that they believe that the number of forced evictions of Roma will increase in the near future. In an editorial appearing in the newspaper Cotidianul on July 5, 2001, writing of the recent destruction of Romani dwellings on the outskirts of Bucharest, Mr Valerian Stan describes a new "fashion" of evictions of Roma, the subtext of which is the reestablishment of "legality": 

It took barely an hour for the "dwellings" of a few dozen Gypsy families to be wiped out. Shocked by the misfortune that struck without warning in the morning, the women wail and tear their hair out. The children, too young to understand, scream just because their mothers cry. Although resigned to their fate, men are overwhelmed with sadness. Mayor Ontanu and the leaders of the police squad are happy with what they've done and give interviews (obviously the press came with the authorities). The crowd of journalists is hungry for every word. The central idea is: the authorities have done their job and legality was reestablished. The bulldozers restlessly roam the place where the Gypsies' shacks once were, while cameramen film them in admiration. An hour ago, dozens of people had a place to call home here. Now they no longer have it and don't know where to go. [...] Such destruction of Romani settlements has become something of a fashion lately. 

Some flat-owners refuse to rent or sell housing facilities to Roma. In late April 2000, for example, an advertisement appeared in the Romanian press, offering a flat for sale in Bucharest, “exclus Romi” – not for Roma. Such blatant and explicit refusals to rent accommodation to Roma are relatively uncommon, but discrimination is reportedly widespread. Far more frequent are cases of the following type: In September 1999, a Romani student was told on the telephone that a room was available for rent. When she arrived to look at the room and the landlady saw that she was Romani, she was reportedly told that the room was not available. 

Additionally, although many non-Romani settlements, especially non-Romani settlements in rural areas, lack basic infrastructure, Romani settlements in Romania are often characterised by a lack of basic utilities such as electricity and running water, and the degree of deprivation is extreme. In the village of Ocolna, near the city of Craiova in southern Romania, when asked whether their house had running water, a middle-aged Romani man replied in confusion, “Running water? What is that? Oh, I know, I have seen that once in Craiova.” As a result, some Romani communities use water from local wells, which is sometimes contaminated and consequently endangers their health. Where Romani settlements have infrastructure, often it is decades old and in dire need of repair. The residents of the Zabrăuţi housing settlement in Bucharest, for example, at the time of an ERRC visit on February 1, 2001, were not provided with electricity, although a number of people had illegally appropriated electricity from nearby power lines. Twenty-two-year-old Mr Vasile Gheorghe told the ERRC that he had been severely injured while attempting to wire his room up; he fell and broke his back and was rendered paralysed from the waist down. The only source of running water for some of the blocks of flats was a single outside tap. One did not even have a tap and the residents had to ask their Romanian neighbours in nearby houses to use their garden taps. The estate was strewn with rubbish because, according to Roma living at Zabrăuţi, the local municipality refused to collect it. 

Similarly, in Alexandria, a town in southern Romania, at the time of an ERRC visit in May 2000, the Romani houses in the Potcoava street had no sewage removal system, even though non-Romani houses located at both ends of that street were connected to a sewage system. In some quarters of the predominantly Romani neighbourhood Ferentari in Bucharest, there was only cold water for tenants, and the municipal cleaning service teams had not taken away rubbish, which had then piled up all over the settlement. The same complaint regarding the lack of garbage removal by the authorities was heard in other Romani communities. The lack of heating reportedly led to several deaths of Roma due to exposure in the Ferentari neighbourhood in the winter of 1999/2000. According to reports, Roma in one community have been housed by municipal officials in former pigsties. 

Although Romania has undertaken a number of steps to comply with its international commitments -- most notably by adopting an anti-discrimination ordinance and a government programme addressing Romani issues -- at present the situation of Roma in Romania remains dire. Burdens on Roma and non-Roma alike, arising from centuries of slavery and unequal treatment of Roma, punctuated by episodes of raw persecution, have led to a situation difficult to resolve, in which society itself is corrupted by racism. 

Evaluating Romania's compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) during its Fifty-fifth session in August 1999, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) issued final concluding observations in April 2001 critical of Romania's efforts to date in the field of Roma rights, and most notably in areas related to the failure of authorities to combat discrimination against Roma. The CERD held explicitly that:

The situation of Roma is a subject of particular concern [...] Given its disadvantaged situation in society, particular concern is caused by the absence of economic and social measures of the kind envisioned in Article 2(2) of the Convention in favour of this minority, Romania's current difficult economic situation notwithstanding. [...]

The Committee further noted: 

[...] the limited number of cases of racial discrimination that have come before the organs administering justice. The Committee is of the opinion that the lack of more complaints and judicial decisions may indicate a lack of legal awareness of the existence of available legal remedies and of the protection against racial discrimination provided by the Convention. It suggests to the State party that it take measures to remedy this situation. [...]

Measures of affirmative action should be adopted in favour of the Roma population [...] with a view, inter alia, to placing Roma on an equal footing with the rest of the population in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, removing prejudices against the Roma population and enhancing its capacity in asserting its rights. A co-ordinated effort by the various State bodies competent in this area, working in conjunction with representatives of the Roma population, is required.  
  
At the 1999 Istanbul Summit, the OSCE Heads of State declared that: “We deplore violence and other manifestations of racism and discrimination against minorities, including Roma and Sinti. We commit ourselves to ensure that laws and policies fully respect the rights of Roma and Sinti and, where necessary, to promote anti-discrimination legislation to this effect.” In addition, in the Charter for European Security adopted at the same Istanbul Summit the OSCE participating States declared: “We recognize the particular difficulties faced by Roma and Sinti and the need to undertake effective measures in order to achieve full equality of opportunity, consistent with OSCE commitments, for persons belonging to Roma and Sinti. We will enforce our efforts to ensure that Roma and Sinti are able to play a full and equal part in our societies, and to eradicate discrimination against them.” In the 1992 Helsinki Document the CSCE participating States “express[ed] their concern over recent and flagrant manifestations of intolerance, discrimination, aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and racism” and “reaffirm[ed], in this context, the need to develop appropriate programmes addressing problems of their respective nationals belonging to Roma and other groups traditionally identified as Gypsies and to create conditions for them to have equal opportunities to participate fully in the life of society, and will consider how to co-operate to this end.”

Romania presently aspires to the status of Member State of the European Union. The most recent European Commission 2001 Regular Report on Romania's Progress Towards Accession noted that “[...] discrimination against the Roma minority remains widespread [...]”. Inclusion in this organisation requires strict adherence to the highest human rights standards, including but not limited to rights set down in the European Convention on Human Rights. Romania must protect, in law and in practice, the rights set down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and must use all appropriate means to achieve progressively the full realisation of the rights recognised in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights without discrimination of any kind, taking particular care to ensure that no person suffers the anathema phenomenon of racial discrimination.