Greece says “Hammarberg confirmed progress in Roma rights”! Date: 29-04-2008
Author: GHM
Greece says “Hammarberg confirmed progress in Roma rights”!
 
Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) was astonished to read in the “Minister of Interior Professor Prokopis Pavlopoulos Message on World Roma Nation Day,” dated 8 April 2008, that Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights (CHR) Thomas Hammarberg had confirmed alleged progress on Roma rights in the last four years, by Greece’s both central government and local authorities. The original text with a GHM English translation follows. Several days after the wide circulations of that statement, the absence of any reaction from the CHR gives the impression that the CHR is in agreement with this laughable position that discredits anyone who seriously supports it.
 
GHM recalls that, since the first visit to Greece of then CHR Álvaro Gil-Robles in June 2002 through 2006, there was at least one visit per year to the Roma in Greece from the CHR office, in view of the existence of serious rights violations. Following the last CHR visit (to the Patras Roma and related meetings with the state authorities), in September 2006 just a few months after he took up office, CHR Thomas Hammarberg even sent a special letter to the Greek authorities, in December 2006 (https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1100661&BackColorInternet=FEC65B&BackColorIntranet=FEC65B&BackColorLogged=FFC679). In it he recalled that his “predecessor Alvaro Gil-Robles, documented poor housing conditions among Roma and referred to cases of their eviction in his reports on Greece” (dated 2002 and 2006). He then added his own first-hand experience: “I saw Roma families living in very poor conditions. Also, I met with a family whose simple habitat had been bulldozed away that same morning. It was obvious that the “procedures” for making them homeless were in total contradiction to human rights standards I referred to above. I was also disturbed to notice that non-Roma people appeared on both sites during my visit and behaved in an aggressive, threatening manner to the extent that my interviews with some of the Roma families were disturbed. I had expected that the police would have offered more obvious protection and I did not get the impression of a principled, clear position by the local authorities against such xenophobic, anti-Ziganistic tendencies.” He concluded by recommending “further work to counter xenophobic and racist tendencies which seriously hinder the social inclusion of Roma” and he added “as regards the current situation in Makrygiannis and Riganocampos, I would like to request further information on the measures taken to compensate and relocate Roma families after eviction or “administrative suspension” and on their security of tenure in current housing.”
 
The CHR has not published a response from the Greek government. It is not known if he received any as his contacts with the NGOs working on Roma rights in Greece were discontinued in 2007. The CHR never answered any of the four 2007 appeals to him and other international bodies by the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and/or Greek Helsinki Monitor (GHM) following Roma evictions in Greece (see http://cm.greekhelsinki.gr/index.php?sec=194&cid=3212). He apparently did not take any action either, unlike three UN Special Rapporteurs, who,as mentioned in recently released annual reports (see below), sent a communication to the Greek authorities, that was never answered either. Instead, in December 2007, the CHR co-organized in Greece a seminar on Roma rights not involving these NGOs; at that time he did not visit either any Roma community facing eviction, but met only with the authorities, which now say he confirmed their “progress”. One may wonder if he sought answers to his December 2006 letter during that meeting and, if so, whether these were indeed satisfactory to him. In the CHR 2007 annual report, the contact visit and two events he co-organized in Greece are mentioned, as well as the Commissioner’s gratitude for the voluntary contributions of 530,000 euros by the governments of Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. (https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1116551&Site=CommDH&BackColorInternet=FEC65B&BackColorIntranet=FEC65B&BackColorLogged=FFC679#P659_77156).
 
In contrast and in concluding, GHM notes the following information published in the Council of Europe’s European Social Charter webpage on the related collective complaints (http://www.coe.int/t/e/human%5Frights/esc/4%5Fcollective%5Fcomplaints/List%5Fof%5Fcollective%5Fcomplaints/): “International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (INTERIGHTS) v. Greece (Complaint No. 49/2008). The complaint was registered on 28 March 2008. It is alleged that the Greek Government continues to forcibly evict Roma without providing suitable alternative accommodation. It also alleges that the Roma in Greece continue to suffer discrimination in access to housing in violation of Article 16 of the European Social Charter (Right of the family to social, legal and economic protection) alone or in conjunction with the non discrimination clause in the Preamble.” The text of the collective complaint, prepared with GHM assistance is available at: http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/esc/4_collective_complaints/list_of_collective_complaints/CC49CaseDoc1_en.pdf.
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