Human rights defender opposes Roma-phobia
On 3 May the member
of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee Maryia Bahdanovich applied to the head of
the main ideological bureau of the Homel Regional Executive Committee, Iryna
Dauhala.
She turns the attention of the main ideologist to the regular xenophobic
publications in the state-owned newspapers “Homelskaya Prauda” and “Svetlaye
Zhyttsio” concerning Roma nationals. “Nothing good is written about them. The
newspapers tell only about Roma criminality and make inadmissible
generalizations. It has reached such a scale that the newspapers public police
ads, in which the people who see Roma nationals are asked to phone to the
police!” says Maryia Bahdanovich.
The human rights defender asks the ideologist to put such publications under
personal control. “According to my observations, xenophobic moods have
increased during the latest years. If the journalists keep adding fuel to the
fire and the police allow incorrect expressions about Romani – it can lead to
hooligan assaults on them. The police will have to investigate the results, and
the society will be destabilized,” Maryia Bahdanovich argues.
