Mazyr police continue discriminating Roma
It is quite interesting whether
officers of Mazyr District Police Department have ever read the
Constitution or have heard the expression "prohibition of
adverse discrimination", including on the grounds of
nationality. Probably they have not, as such articles as "Don't
Surrender to Roma Tricks" keep appearing in the district
state-owned newspaper "Zhyttsio Palessia".
By they
way, insult of the national dignity is punished by the law, but do
the police know about it?
Yauhen Partny, an officer of the
crime investigation department of Mazyr District Police Department,
told a journalist of "Zhyttsio Palessia" that "last
year several crimes with the participation of persons of Roma
nationality were registered on the territory of Homel region".
Bear in mind that in 2012 9.8 thousand crimes were registered at the
crime investigation department of Homel region. That's why there is
hardly any ground for making generalizations on the basis of several
crimes and intimidate the population with Roma, while many more
crimes are committed by representatives of other nationalities
including Belarusians.
The policeman informed the newspaper
that about 35 Roma lived on the territory of Mazyr district, only 4
or 5 of whom worked and all others lived on occasional earnings and
begging. "Roma are inclined to commitment of crimes",
stated Yauhen Partny, without drawing any reasons for his
conclusions. According to the statistics for 2012, drawn by him, two
crimes were committed by Roma in Mazyr.
The police officer
shamelessly tells about the adverse discrimination of Roma nationals:
"All Roma are subject to photo and dactylographic registration,
their genome samples are gathered. Roma are detained and identified.
Information about their movements is passed to the nearest DPDs of
the region."
The police officer tells dwellers of the
district to be vigilant when receiving any requests from Roma. "If
Roma nationals come to your house, you shouldn't open the doors or
talk to them, but rather inform the police about it".
Homel
human rights defenders Ales Yauseyenka and Maryia Klimovich have
repeatedly drawn the attention of the local authorities and the
Ministry of Internal Affairs to the discrimination of Roma in mass
media. Homel ideologists promised them to hold talks with the editors
of district newspapers about the inadmissibility of specification of
the nationality of criminals in their publications. MIA, in its turn,
promised to hold prophylactic talks among the police to tell them
about the inadmissibility of discriminative statements fomenting
national enmity. As we see, such promises and talks bring no
results.
