Breaking News: Roma

As many of you know, this blog has been particularly dedicated to the plight of Roma communities here in Greece. The Roma Series has received a fair bit of media attention and has, in some small way, raised awareness of some of the issues. For those of you who are not familiar with the series, I would urge you to read it. It also provides background information that relates to this post. I want to update you on the latest situation on the mass illegal evictions of the Roma who used to live in the Votanikos area of Athens. This is the community that I have also photographed extensively and featured in an exhibition I took part in last year. Most of the images in The Roma Series are of that same community

I received this information from the European Court of Human Rights on the impending case that should result in a decision in autumn of this year. I am posting the case in full because it contains important background and information on the whole issue of illegal evictions of the Roma. At the bottom of the article, I have posted some other links relating to this case.

THE FACTS
The sixteen applicants, listed below, are Albanian nationals of Roma ethnic origin (listed below). They are represented before the Court by the Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM), which is legally represented in Greece through its managing NGO, Communication and Political Research Society (ETEPE). They are also represented by the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), an international public interest law organisation that defends the legal rights of Roma and is based in Budapest.

A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

1. The context of the case

The applicants lived for more than ten years, until June 2007, together with other numerous Roma families, on a plot of land in Aghiou Polykarpou Street in the area of Votanikos, close to the centre of Athens. The plot belonged to the Municipality of Athens. The settlement was located next to a highly polluted stream, small industrial facilities and warehouses.

Since the beginning of 2005 a series of articles were published in the press relating to the rehabilitation of the area and the need to evict the Roma families.
On 14 January 2007 GHM addressed a letter to the Greek Ombudsman in his capacity as the Equal Treatment implementation body of Law No. 3304/2005, complaining on behalf of the Roma settled in the area of Votanikos about their living conditions.

On 14 March 2007 the Ombudsman’s office acknowledged receipt of GHM’s complaint and informed it that they had visited the area in November 2005 and that since late 2006 they had been in contact with the competent authorities in order to find a solution to the problems related to the living conditions of Roma in the area of Votanikos.

On 30 January 2007 Athens Prefect, Yannis Sgouros, visited the Roma settlement of Votanikos, accompanied by a team of inspectors from the Prefecture’s Health Inspectorate and a cleaning crew. On the same date, an extensive clean-up of the settlement was undertaken.

On 2 March 2007 the Ministry of Interior informed MP Alevras, who had tabled a question in Parliament about the living conditions of Roma in Votanikos, that an administrative Committee had already been set up to examine potential solutions to the issue of housing of the Roma settled in the area of Votanikos.

On 23 February 2007 a letter addressed by the municipality of Athens to the Region of Attica contained the Mayor’s answer to the question tabled by MP Alevras. The letter noted that municipal cleaning crews had twice carried out a clean-up of the settlement in Aghiou Polykarpou Street. Moreover, the Mayor of Athens criticised the reaction of other municipalities facing similar issues, consisting of the launching of criminal proceedings and the eviction of Roma from municipal plots of land.

2. The eviction from the Aghiou Polykarpou plot

On 1st June 2007 a cleaning crew that belonged to the private construction company of B.V., which was entitled to execute a commercial building project on the Aghiou Polykarpou plot, appeared in the settlement where the applicants lived, and called upon them to leave. Moreover, an employee of the Municipality of Athens was allegedly on the spot urging the Roma, and among them the applicants, to leave, telling them that, should they not do so, their sheds would be demolished.

Shortly after, B.V. the director of the construction company, arrived and offered each Roma family 1,000 euros as compensation in order to leave.
On the same date GHM representatives filed a complaint against the Municipality of Athens in view of the threatened eviction of Roma from the Aghiou Polykarpou settlement.

On 2 June 2007 the cleaning crew visited again the settlement and reiterated the offer of 1,000 euros to the Roma adding this time that regardless of whether they take the money or not, their sheds would be demolished. GHM’s advocate visited again the settlement and then filed an additional complaint report against B.V. He tried as well to persuade the police to apply the in flagrante procedure, as the cleaning crew was still located in the settlement. The police refused to do so.

On 4 June 2007 some of the Roma from the Aghiou Polykarpou settlement informed GHM that, out of fear of losing their homes without even a modest compensation, they had decided to accept the 1,000 euros offered by B.V. and had already vacated the settlement on Saturday afternoon, 2 June 2007.
Despite these offers, certain Roma refused to leave and bulldozers went in the settlement and leveled the sheds. Several interviews of the Roma themselves to journalists, on 5 June 2007, confirmed that the settlement was turned into a “battlefield”.

Two weeks after the alleged cleaning operations, journalists visited the area where the settlement was located and noted that the rubble and rubbish had not been removed while remains of sheds could be seen easily. Another cleaning operation by a crew of the Municipality of Athens would have allegedly taken place on 15 June 2007 in the remaining large settlement of Roma in Votanikos, located in a dead-end off Orpheos Street. It was finally averted due to the presence of the Deputy Ombudsman for Human Rights, alerted by a movie crew that was shooting a documentary in that settlement. When asked to provide the authorization they had to ask the Roma to leave, the officials of the cleaning crew produced simple papers that merely authorized them to carry rubbish.

3. The eviction’s aftermath and the initiatives taken by the Greek Ombudsman.

Following the eviction of the applicants from the Aghiou Polykarpou settlement, the Ombudsman addressed an urgent letter, on June 14 June 2007, to the Mayor of Athens. He noted that,

even if the Roma in question have been goaded into leaving without the competent Municipal authorities being aware of it, the fact that this appears to have taken place in the context of or, as the case might be, during the cleaning of the area by a municipal crew, it equitably accentuates the obligation of the municipal authorities to first seek and locate the whereabouts of the Roma that left in order to make sure that they can be found when their relocation will be underway, providing them with guarantees at the same time that they will live under conditions of safety and dignity while waiting for the final decision of the competent officials of the Region of Attica in relation to the place where they will be relocated, and second, to speed up, in cooperation with the Region of Attica and the other involved authorities, the procedures for identifying such a relocation place.

To this day, the Municipality of Athens has not answered the Ombudsman’s letter.
On 20 June 2007 the Greek Ombudsman addressed a letter to the General Secretary of the Attica Region, informing him of the alleged eviction of Roma from the Aghiou Polykarpou Street settlement and drawing his attention to the requirement to provide them with a relocation site. In the same letter, the Greek Ombudsman reiterated his standpoint that state authorities were under the positive obligation to provide Roma with housing since their staying under so grossly substandard conditions constituted a form of degrading treatment, committed by omission.

On 18 October 2007 the Ombudsman addressed a lengthy letter to the general Police Directorate of Attica. He stressed that, following in situ visits, he had noted that the settlement of Aghiou Polykarpou no longer existed. The Ombudsman underlined as well that regardless of the fact whether the Roma were evicted or left on their own free will, they merely dispersed in the wider area causing even more problems than before. The Ombudsman noted that despite the fact that Roma might had moved from where they lived previously, they were still “beneficiaries of the special attention and protection that the administration ought to show towards them, consisting of relocating them within a reasonable time in an area suitable for their stay in humane living conditions”. Moreover, the Ombudsman noted that police should provide support for the eviction of Roma only in cases where a court decision to that effect had been issued and only if a relocation site for the Roma had been designated.

On 2 November 2007 the Greek Ombudsman addressed to the Municipality of Athens a letter marked “Very urgent”. In this letter, he noted:

Despite the particular gravity of the situation, the Greek Ombudsman notes that the Municipality of Athens has not responded until now to the very urgent requests that have been made regarding both the briefing concerning the proposal that the Municipality intends to submit to the aforementioned competent Committee of the Region, and the measures that has already implemented or will take in the future in order to address the whole issue comprehensively.

On 5 November 2007 the Greek Ombudsman uploaded on his website and made public his letter addressed on 23 October 2007 to the Minister of Interior. The Ombudsman noted that Roma had been living in Votanikos for more than ten years without however the Greek state having taken any steps in order to address their inhuman living conditions. The Ombudsman added that in the last two years, his office had entered into extensive correspondence with various competent authorities and had unsuccessfully drawn their attention to the need of implementing a series of measures. He also noted that the “simultaneous en masse withdrawal of all the gypsies from –one of the two until then most heavily populated settlements- the Polykarpou Street settlement had taken place “under not clarified until now circumstances”. The Ombudsman concluded that the inertia of the various agencies until then did not render likely the possibility that they would promptly implement any initiatives in relation to the Roma, notwithstanding the particularly imperative need to do so.

On 4 February 2008 the Greek Ombudsman addressed another letter to the General Secretary of the Attica Region. He lamented the fact that until then he had received no information from the competent authorities regarding any measure that they contemplated implementing in order to provide a prompt relocation of both the Roma living in the Orpheos settlement as well as those who had vacated in July 2007 the settlement of Aghiou Polykarpou Street and were living in the wider area. The Ombudsman also stressed that the Municipality of Athens persisted in erroneously interpreting the law, arguing that it was not the Municipality’s obligation to locate a plot of land where the Roma should be relocated to. The Ombudsman then drew the General Secretary’s attention to the fact that the persistent failure of the domestic authorities to address this issue put into question the compliance of their inaction with both the Greek Constitution as well as Article 3 of the Convention.

On 6 May 2008 the Greek Ombudsman addressed a new letter to the General Secretary of the Attica region. He underlined that the General Secretary had the option under the Sanitary Regulation to proceed and identify a plot of land where the Roma should be relocated and effect their relocation, should the Municipal Council fail to submit its proposal within a month. The Greek Ombudsman also called upon the Secretary General to establish a coordinating agency that would supervise all the involved authorities and take immediate and appropriate initiative towards securing human living conditions to the Roma of the Attica region.

4. The applicants’ relocations following the eviction

Following their eviction from the Aghiou Polykarpou Street settlement, the applicants settled in an abandoned factory located on 120, Iera Odos from where they were evicted by the police on 11 June 2007. Following the second eviction, they settled on a plot of land belonging to the private company “VIAMAX” and located on 3-13, Kifissos Avenue and 6, Thessalias Street in the area of Aegaleo. On 18 October 2007 legal counsel for the “VIAMAX” company filed with the Magistrate’s Court of Athens an interim injunction calling for the applicants’ eviction.

On 26 November 2007 the Magistrate’s Court of Athens ordered the eviction of the applicants (decision no. 6859/2007). In light of the upcoming Christmas holidays as well as the onset of inclement weather, the applicants and their representatives were informed by the “VIAMAX” company that they would not seek to execute immediately the decision nor would they proceed to forcible evict the applicants, provided the latter voluntarily vacated their land within a reasonable period.

In early January 2008 the applicants as well as other Roma occupying the plot of land belonging to the “VIAMAX” company had withdrawn. They then settled in a neighbouring plot. Upon setting there, they reported to the Greek Ombudsman’s Office that police officials almost immediately visited and started harassing them in order to leave.

The applicants were forced to leave again. Most settled with their families in various plots of land located in the wider region of Attica, while others were forced to go back to the Roma settlement located at Orpheos Street.
The Greek Ombudsman had noted in October 2007 that the influx of Roma to the Orpheos Street settlement further exacerbated the already bad living conditions.

B. Relevant international law and practice
1. The European Committee of Social Rights
In its decision of 8 December 2004, the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), following the lodging by the European Roma Rights Centre of a collective complaint (No.15/2003) against Greece in relation to the housing of the Roma, found that Greece’s housing policies were in violation of Article 16 of the European Social charter on ground of, inter alia, forced evictions and other sanctions against the Roma. More specifically, the ECSR noted that whereas in cases of illegal occupation of a site, an eviction might be legitimate, the criteria as to what constitutes an illegal occupation should not be unduly wide.

Furthermore, the eviction should take place in accordance with the applicable rules of procedure and that those rules should be sufficiently protective of the rights of the persons concerned. Finally, the ECSR underlined the following:

50. The Committee notes that the Government provides no real information on evictions, (either statistics, or remedies for those unlawfully evicted or examples of relevant case law). It fails either to comment on or contradict the information provided by the ERRC on collective eviction of Roma both settled and itinerant without the provision of alternative housing and sometimes involving the destruction of personal property.

51. The Committee considers that illegal occupation of a site or dwelling may justify the eviction of the illegal occupants. However, the criteria of illegal occupation must not be unduly wide, the eviction should take place in accordance with the applicable rules of procedure and these should be sufficiently protective of the rights of the persons concerned. The Committee considers that on these three grounds the situation is not satisfactory.

The ECSR concluded as follows:

The Committee finds that Greece has failed to take sufficient measures to improve the living conditions of the Roma and that the measures taken have not yet achieved what is required by the Charter, notably by reason of the insufficient means for constraining local authorities or sanctioning them. It finds on the evidence submitted that a significant number of Roma are living in conditions that fail to meet minimum standards and therefore the situation is in breach of the obligation to promote the right of families to adequate housing laid down in Article 16.

In his concurring opinion to the decision, the Greek member of the ECSR himself stated, in relation to the 2003 Sanitary Regulations concerning the setting up of organised settlement for itinerant Roma, that the decree did not provide for any sufficiently dissuasive penalties, criminal or otherwise, for representatives of local authorities who refused to accept responsibility for setting up the sites agreed on, even though this was an obligation under the first sub-paragraph of Article 4. By failing to include specific penalties, the decree itself created the conditions for its non-implementation.

The ECSR would essentially repeat this finding in July 2006 in its document “Conclusions XVIII-I (Greece) Articles 1, 12, 13, 16 and 19 of the Charter”.

According to the ECSR:

The Committee concludes that the situation in Greece is not in conformity with Article 16 of the Charter for the following reasons:

– there is still a shortage of housing suited to the size and the needs of Roma families (Follow-up to Complaint No. 15/2003 by the European Roma Rights Centre against Greece);

– Roma families still do not have sufficient legal protection.

2. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

On 28 September 2005, at Working Session 14 of the OSCE, concerning Tolerance and non-Discrimination, the Greek Delegation stated:

Pursuant to domestic and international law it is evident that eviction is explicitly related to the right of property. In conformity with the ICCPR (Article 1§2) and the First Additional Protocol to the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Article 1), the Greek Constitution (Article 17§1,2) determines that …Hence it is evident that eviction is legal upon absence of property titles or in cases of unauthorised settlement in absence of the necessary settlement permit upon encroachment on others property or in cases where there is demand for public interest infrastructures. The relevant law applies to all Greek citizens therefore to Roma people too. In the alleged cases thus, it is not about illegal evictions. Eviction or even administrative removal from public tracts of land is lawful upon infringement of property right however relocation of those offended in that sense is sought upon agreement of their representatives and the competent local authorities in order to facilitate, as possible, a prior to the relocation commonly accepted alternative settlement, till a permanent rehabilitation settlement is made possible.

This statement essentially repeated an answer to the United Nations Human Rights Committee List of Issues, submitted on March 22-23 2005, during the consideration of Greece’s First Periodic Report to the Human Rights Committee.

3. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe

In Recommendation (2005)4, specifically concerning the housing situation of the Roma, the Committee of Ministers noted, inter alia, that:

Since Roma continue to be among the most disadvantaged population groups in Europe, national housing policies should seek to address their specific problems as a matter of emergency, and in a non-discriminatory way.

4. Member States should promote and protect the right to adequate housing for all, as well as ensure equal access to adequate housing for Roma through appropriate proactive policies, particularly in the area of affordable housing and service delivery

4. The European Parliament
In a Resolution adopted on 28 April 2005 on the situation of the Roma in the European Union, the European Parliament noted that:

19. Considers that the current ghettoisation in Europe is unacceptable and calls on Member States to take concrete steps to bring about deghettoisation, to combat discriminatory practices in providing housing and to assist individual Roma in finding alternative, sanitary housing.

5. The Permanent Council of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

On 27 November 2003, the OSCE Permanent Council adopted an Action Plan on Improving the Situation of Roma and Sinti in the OSCE Area. In section IV, paragraph 43 of the Action Plan, it was recommended that States should:

Put in place mechanisms and institutional procedures to clarify property rights, resolve questions of ownership and regularise the legal status of Roma and Sinti people living in circumstances of unsettled legality (e.g. Roma neighbourhoods lacking land rights or which are not included in the urban plans of the main locality; families and houses without legal residence status in settlements where the people have been living de facto for decades)”

COMPLAINTS

1. The applicants submit, under Article 3 of the Convention, that their right not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment has been violated on three different grounds: firstly, because of the State’s failure to provide them with a stopping place where they can settle and of the fact that it consigned them to living under unacceptable conditions and increased the likelihood of their being subjected to eviction or other sanctions; secondly, because of their eviction by means of demolition of their sheds and destruction of their belongings; thirdly, because of their living conditions after their eviction. In particular, they contend that they are constantly forced to trespass on other people’s properties while they do not even have the benefit of living under a solid roof.

2. The applicants submit that their right under Article 8 of the Convention has been violated firstly on account of their inhuman living conditions and secondly because of the fact that agents of the State carried out their eviction. Further, they maintain that under this heading, they enjoyed no access to an available formal “effective and accessible” procedure that would allow them to voice their concerns and take part in the decision making process relating to their provision with temporary housing or shelter, in accordance with domestic law. They consider that, in the light of the Moldovan and Others v. Romania judgment of the Court (No. 41138/98, 12 July 2005), cases such as the present an overlap of Articles 3 and 8.

3. The applicants submit that the failure of the authorities to ensure that they will be provided with adequate shelter, in a background of a widespread absence of effective remedies, constitute a violation of Article 13 taken together with Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention.

4. The applicants submit that all the alleged violations of their rights that they have experienced are intrinsically related to their Romani ethnic origin, in violation of Article 14 taken together with Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Have the applicants exhausted all effective domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, was there in the domestic legal order any effective remedy within the meaning of this provision in respect of the applicants’ complaints under Articles 3, 8 and 14 of the Convention? If no effective judicial remedies were available to the applicants, was Article 13 of the Convention infringed in this respect?

2. Bearing in mind in particular the manner in which the applicants’ sheds were allegedly destroyed and their personal living conditions, have the applicants been subjected to degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention? In particular, under which circumstances had the applicants left the Votanikos’ settlement? What were their specific living conditions after their alleged eviction from the Aghiou Polykarpou Street settlement? What are their actual living conditions?

3. Has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to respect for their home, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention? Did they enjoy an access to an effective and accessible procedure that would allow them to voice their concerns to the relevant authorities and take part in the decision making process relating to their eventual relocation? Did the competent authorities take all necessary measures in order to provide the applicants with a realistic and sustainable solution to their housing predicament?

4. Was the eviction of the applicants due to their Roma ethnic origin and did the authorities comply with their obligation under Article 14 taken together with Articles 3 and 8 to investigate possible motives based on the ethnic origin of the applicants?

Thank you for reading the whole case.

Please also see this YouTube video where the Mayor of Tavros proudly shows the Skai News camera the eviction of Roma by him from another municipality (Athens) on the 18th October 2008! They are the same people that I met and photographed. It is in Greek but it basically reiterates what I reported in The Roma Series. That they live in terrible conditions with no clean water and no access to education.

See also the BBC video segment by Malcolm Brabant about the Roma settlement in Votanikos that was broadcast on the 8th June 2007.

The GHM also notes that:

It is reminded that in 1998-2008 out of 440 judgments on Greece, in only 9 did the ECtHR find NO violation. Hence one expects that this complaint will lead to the finding of violation(s) as well.

I will keep you posted about any developments or updates. Roma communities are on the most part forgotten and neglected worldwide and very little is written about the issues they face. If you can, please post to your blogs, Facebook, NowPublic, Twitter or whatever other social network you use. Thank you.