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Cases of discrimination. Conclusions and recommendations
3. Coordinated work
and identification tools are a must
Networking is essential amongst all professional groups
working to assist victims of discrimination, i.e. profes-
sionals from social institutions, the police, hate crime
and discrimination prosecutors, lawyers and judges.
Today there are resources available to address dis-
crimination but there is not enough coordination. This
could be solved with efficient networking among the
50 provincial prosecutors specialised in hate crimes and
discrimination, the police, the courts and organisations
that assist victims of discrimination. This would help
provide a better response.
In addition to this, unified action in terms of case iden-
tification protocols and computer and recording tools
in the process of defending these cases, would pave
the way to effective defence, much in the same way
as with gender-based violence. Also, if the police and
judicial computer systems record and specifically
identify illegal discriminatory acts, we would obtain the
data that has been missing up to now. As everyone will
understand, it is not the same to be injured indiscrimi-
nately as it is to be injured because you are Roma. The
aggravating circumstance of discrimination must be re-
corded and the defence strategy must take racist mo-
tivation into account. Where discrimination is a factor, it
should be recorded and specific action taken not only
in criminal cases but in all cases.
The lack of data and statistics in this sense renders this
serious social problem invisible in Spain. Data will allow
us to get a clearer idea of the dimension of the problem
and contribute to the design of solutions, something
that our government should be working on.
4. Europe must take a stand against discrimination,
especially concerning racist and xenophobic
speeches and actions by some political leaders
The economic crisis has prompted some political lead-
ers from certain political groups in Europe to adopt a
racist and xenophobic discourse for electoral purposes,
pointing to the most vulnerable groups as the culprits
of the economic crisis (Roma, immigrants, people of
different faiths, etc.). This sort of discourse, in violation
of European law, has had a perverse effect on co-ex-
istence and encouraged the social rejection of these
groups. Furthermore, the main political parties, as well
as the European Commission and the European Parlia-
ment, have done nothing even resembling a firm stance
against these practices.
Anti-gypsyism in Spain and in several other European
countries is an everyday reality (France, Italy, Hunga-
ry, Slovakia, Czech Republic, etc.) where acts of dis-
crimination and violence have been perpetrated against
the most vulnerable Roma communities; acts that are a
direct attack on their fundamental rights (the right to
equality, education, freedom of movement, etc.) guar-
anteed under a number of different laws.
3
Specifically
we are referring to the mass expulsions, the forced re-
turn of minors as in the case of the young girl Leonarda
Dibrani in France, segregated schools, racist violence,
hate speech, etc. The response of the European insti-
tutions to all of this has been tepid at best. When it
comes to the violation of fundamental rights, rights that
form the very cornerstone of the Europe we have been
building and which is based on solid values, respect for
equality, social justice and co-existence, the European
institutions must not look the other way as this would
serve to reinforce the feeling of impunity experienced
by many Roma people when their rights are violated.
3 Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December, 1948.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 16
December 1966.
Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June implementing the principle of
equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.