The European Committee of Social Rights has issued a landmark ruling against the Czech Republic, acknowledging that the lack of sufficient data collection on the overrepresentation of Romani children in the country’s state care constitutes indirect discrimination. This binding ruling is the outcome of a complaint jointly filed by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and the Forum for Human Rights (FORUM) in early 2020.

"The ruling sends a clear message – governments can no longer hide behind the excuse of not collecting ethnic data to conceal their discriminatory practices against Romani communities. The decision emphasises the crucial role of ethnic data in shaping impactful policies, echoing concerns raised by respected international bodies like ECRI, the Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child" said ERRC Legal Director, Senada Sali.

“The European Committee's decision provides an opportunity to unify the practice of collecting ethnic data and to create a sensitive and transparent method for assessing exactly where and to what extent discrimination against Roma is occurring. This decision will make available data that can help reveal the structural nature of discrimination and antigypsyism” said Maroš Matiaško, Senior Legal Counsel at FORUM.

Link:  https://www.errc.org/.../czech-republics-failure-to...

Two city cleaning workers were attacked while they were on shift. The reason - that they are Roma. Insults and even physical attacks on a national basis by the very people who keep our common Belgrade clean are not rare. Goran Makivić is a driver in Gradska čistoča. He works mostly in the third shift. He says that insults are not rare, but even when cleaning workers draw attention to garbage being thrown into baskets and containers, to moving illegally parked cars so that they can do their work, they can also be physically attacked. - We have various experiences, from entering the truck, I was in the field, I got out of the truck, raised the crane and emptied the container, a man got into the truck in the driver's seat and wanted to start the truck. To which I reacted, that he can't do that, I asked him to leave the vehicle and he left without any problems. And various other experiences, in Mirijevo they attacked us with a baseball bat, a man got out of the car because we parked next to the container, he can't pass - says Goran for "Blic" TV.

Attacks on Roma in society are not rare, but they are little talked about in public, although they are almost always motivated by intolerance towards this community:

- What makes someone hate someone or hurt someone? It is pure hatred, there is nothing else. This means that they did not learn anything else in their house except to hate and look down on others, to treat other people who are not of their rank or mentality, as if they were lower beings - believes Nataša Tasić. Let us remind you that Dr. Branko Kajtazi, a specialist in neurology, and his 13- and 15-year-old sons were beaten with metal rods by two minors at the end of last year. A year earlier, a married couple was beaten on a bus. The most well-known cases from more than two decades ago are the boy Duško Jovanović and the actor Dragan Maksimović. Both were beaten to death, the first because he was a Roma, the second because he looked like a Roma to the attackers.

Link: https://www.blic.rs/vesti/beograd/radnici-gradske-cistoce-svakodnevno-trpe-napade-samo-zato-sto-su-romi/kn3bpr0