UN labels France Roma expulsions 'racist'

[IndianaGreen]

UN labels France Roma expulsions 'racist'

Friday 27 August 2010
by Tom Mellen

A UN anti-racism panel has demanded that France stop rounding up and expelling Roma people and slammed the increasingly "racist and xenophobic tone" of top politicians.

French police have dismantled over 50 Roma camps in the past two weeks and 700 of the people who used to live in them are expected to be returned to Bulgaria and Romania this month.

On Thursday 283 more Roma migrants were booted out, despite widening criticism of the French government's sinister policy.

The Sarkozy administration, which insists that the expulsions will serve to reduce crime, said that all those flown back to the Balkans were part of a voluntary repatriation scheme and had accepted payments equivalent to about $380 (£246) per adult and $120 (£77) per child.

However the UN report issued in Geneva on Friday cast doubt on that claim, saying that "not all individuals" had given "their free and full consent" or understood their rights.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/94578

[wtmusic]

1. "despite widening criticism of the French government's sinister policy"

Glad they told me it was sinister, so I don't have to think for myself

[Boojatta]

2. "700 of the people who used to live in them are expected to be returned to Bulgaria and Romania"

Romania might not be the best place for them to be.

Between 1941 and 1944, German and Romanian authorities murdered or caused the deaths of between 150,000 and 250,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews in Transnistria.

At least 270,000 Romanian Jews were killed or died from mistreatment but it is important to mention that Jews were not the only minorities targeted by Romanians.

Gypsies were also affected by the Holocaust, with twenty six thousand deported, around seven thousand massacred, and another three thousand were starved to death.

Source

[Violet_Crumble]

3. The UN's got it spot on...it is racist and very disturbing...

Mass deportations like that should summon up some very dark memories of the genocide of the Roma carried out by the Nazis in WWII...

As both Bulgaria and Romania are EU members along with France, I wonder how Zarkozy is planning on keeping Roma from returning to France? I thought citizens of EU countries can travel freely in all other EU countries...