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Mazyr police continue discriminating Roma

2013 2013-04-04T16:18:27+0300 1970-01-01T03:00:00+0300 en https://spring96.org/files/images/sources/cygany.jpg The Human Rights Center “Viasna” The Human Rights Center “Viasna”
The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

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.

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