Amnesty International calls off gypsies eviction

Amnesty International urges Romania to stop the forced evictions of gypsies.

In a report reminding the gypsies’ problems it is drawn attention to unsuitable conditions in which the community lives and some recommendations are made.

"Expel at the periphery", suggestive title of Amnesty International report focuses on the housing problem of gypsies in Romania, covering the three cases that have created controversy in recent years.

Thus, NGOs denounce the eviction of hundreds of gypsies in 2010 from a street in Cluj-Napoca to a peripheral industrial area very close to a huge landfill in small houses without plumbing.

NGO also criticizes the case from Baia Mare when the mayor wanted to move on the spot of a former chemical plant 1,000 gypsies from the improvised neighbourhood Craica in August 2012, the local authorities in Piatra Neamt evicted about 500 gypsies and relocated them in the social housing in Văleni 2, a social area about 7 miles away from the city center, separated by a deserted industrial area and a river.

The NGO for Human Rights Amnesty International, through the report reminded urged the Romanian government to take urgent action to stop the forced eviction of gypsies from the housing.

The authors of the report denounces the loopholes that allow local authorities under the pretext of renovation and planning of urban centers, to expel whole gypsies communities long-time established and move them in unsuitable housing isolated from the general population.

The report appears in the context in which Romania has the largest gypsy minority in Europe, namely, over 600 thousand people, according to Census 2011.
Other data provided by specialized NGOs say that in Romania there are about two million gypsy people.


Translated by Alexandra-Diana Mircea
MTTLC, Bucharest University