Against anti-Gypsy hate speech

On May 23, 2006, the European Roma Rights Center ( ERRC ) sent a letter to Aleksey Dmitrenko, editor-in-chief of the Samara newspaper Budni. The letter expresses concern over the publication of articles in the newspaper containing anti-Roma hate speech and the continued identification of Roma as drug dealers and criminals.

Such publications include, in particular,

• "And now the gypsy theater will show the performance: "Hello, I'm from the social security!" (dated July 6, 2005),

• "The fishery of the Sukhumi youths" (dated August 3, 2005)

• "Shooted at the police - got 9 years" (dated September 14, 2005)

• "The bloody trail of gypsy horse thieves" (dated September 28, 2005)

• "Slaves from the Gypsy Mansion" (January 11, 2006)

ERRC points to the unreasonable and intrusive reference to the ethnicity of participants in criminal episodes contained in all these articles, as well as in a number of other materials of the newspaper (mainly in the crime chronicle), some materials are also accompanied by appropriate illustrative material. All this, according to representatives of the ERRC, leads to the unreasonable identification of all Roma with crime.

"Dear Mr. Dmitrenko, ERRC is concerned that the articles appearing in your newspaper incite racial hatred and promote hostility towards Roma. We urge you and the journalists of your newspaper to take a strong stand against hate speech and refrain from inflammatory anti-Roma language in your publications ," the letter signed by ERRC Executive Director Dimitrina Petrova says.

ERRC Newsletter (in Russian)

Sources

• ERRC Urges Russian Newspaper to End Hate Speech Practices // European Roma Rights Centre. 2006. May 23 (in English).