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Cristina Pace

The Witch Hunts: the Impact of Media and Public Opinion on Minority

Protection, Ethnic Discrimination and Racism. The case of Roma in Europe

Contents

Introduction and Outline.

1. Nationalism and Nation-Sate, New Racism and the Power of Media.

2. Roma: the Eternally Discriminated People.

3. Media Discourse and Minority Rights.

4. Case Study: Roma’s Minorities in Italy.

5. Conclusions, Recommendations and Proposals for Action.

Bibliography

“All human rights exist for the protection of minorities”, Paul Sieghart (The Lawful Rights of Mankind, 1986) “An encounter with Others is not a simple, automatic thing, but involves will and an effort that not everyone is always ready to undertake” (RyszardKapuscinski, The Other, 2008)

Abbreviations COE Council of Europe EC European Commission ECRI European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance EUMC European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia FRA European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights OSI Open Society Institute

Introduction and Outline

The aim of this essay is to focus on the responsibility of media and public opinion in Western

states when considering issues of discrimination of ethnic minorities and human rights;

through an analysis of the media attitudes towards ethic minorities, the media description of

these minorities and its effect on the general social and political context.1 The media and the

                                                                                                               1 In the words of Teun A.Van Dijk, the “social context consists of the activities of journalists in news making, as

     

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news that they disseminate in the general context, “play an important role in the reproduction

of racial and ethnic inequality in the society”, media discourse being“the main source of

peoples knowledge, attitudes and ideologies, both of other élites and of ordinary

citizens”(Van Dijk 2000: 33-36).

The role of media will be considered at the same time as an essential tool for shaping (or re-

shaping) the national identity of a nation and media will be considered as playing an

important role in social cohesion (or social conflict) as well as in the propagation of a more or

less homogeneous picture of a country.2

Politicians, educators, scholars and media élites control the access to most public discourse

and for this reason have a specific role and liability in these forms of discursive racism as well

as “a specific control over minority groups, whose everyday life they are able to control by

their discourse, policies and decisions in positions of power”(Van Dijk2000: 36).

The thesis is that, since we are living in a time of multiculturalism and globalization where

largely homogenous societies are becoming ethnically diverse; a new, inclusive definition of

national identity is required, which recognize this change in Western States and the diversity

of multiethnic societies, “transcending the dominant framework of the nation-state and

liberal individualism”(Dersso, 2007: 2).

In this respect, it is important to underline that, as highlighted by the history of the last thirty

years, minority rights and the issue of peaceful coexistence of different communities in

society, are not a marginal human rights question, solely of concern of the individual or group

involved, but a question of concern for the society as a whole.

The need for a more tailored approach to minorities has been recognized under international

human rights law, but only by the end of the cold war in the late 1980s. This acknowledgment

was in fact a consequence of a series of violent and serious ethnic conflicts, which have been

dramatically characterized the post-cold War period, and have prompted international law to

develop mechanisms to respond to these issues, reconsidering the international law’s position

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         well as the interpretation of readers, in the increasingly multicultural societies of western Europe and North America”. The theoretical and methodological approach used is “discourse analytical”, this meaning that news are not treated as “transparent messages whose contents may be analyzed in a superficial, quantitative way”, but in relation to “the complex structures and strategies of news reports and their relation to the social context” (Van Dijk 2000: 33). 2 Cfr. Kianzad, B., (2008), Media and Minority Rights. The role of media in promoting social cohesion and enforcing human rights of ethnic minorities in nation states, University essay from Lunds universitet.  

     

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on minority rights and the urgency of developing the necessary framework for resolving such

conflicts (Dersso 2007, Vijapur2006).3

It became obvious, as underlined by Vijapur in his article, that one of the main reason for

present and past ethnic conflicts worldwide is the low participation level of minorities in the

power-sharing and decision-making process of their countries and that “besides according

them legal protection and practicing tolerance towards them, peace is not possible in these

multi-ethnic states” (Vijapur2006: 368)

At the same time, it should be acknowledged that the idea of an ethno-cultural homogenous

state where people speak the same language, share the same religion and have a similar ethnic

background is an obsolete one, far away from the reality.

On the contrary, following the suggestion of Solomon Dersso, this paper will argue that

“multiethnicity rather than homogeneity is an essential value of the human condition in

multiethnic societies that States need to take account of” (Dersso 2007: 2).

The material in this essay is divided in five sections. The first section will give a short

overview to the “critical discourse analysis (CDA)” approach to minority rights and the

different theories on racism and “new(s) racism”(Van Dijk2000).The second section will

analyze theories of critical discourse analysis applied to a specific group of people, the Roma

of Europe which, with their history of persecution and discrimination throughout all Eastern

as well as Western European countries, represents one of the most discriminated group in

Europe nowadays. This analysis will show how the national and international media have a

strong impact on how public opinion perceive the image of this specific group of people and

in which way this image influences a general discriminative attitude towards them as well as

public policies affecting their daily lives, fostering a series of more or less consolidated

stereotypes and prejudices towards them. If Roma, as well as other minorities, are always

portrayed in negative terms, as dirty, lazy, antisocial, then it is obvious to suppose that they

will have harder time when looking for house, employment, or when they will try to integrate

and participate to the public and cultural life of their country. At the same time it is easy to

                                                                                                               3 Ethnic based conflicts in the 20th century ranged from those involving Jews as well as Roma people and other minority groups with their attempted extermination by the Nazi regime during World War II, to the diverse racial groups in South Africa and Namibia, to longstanding tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, genocidal fighting between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, violence in Basque region and Algeria, separatist movements in Quebec, Senegal, Kurd and East Timor and civil wars in the Balkans, Sudan, DRC and Cote d’Ivoire. UN reported that in the first half of the 1990s alone, nearly five millions of people died as a result of civil wars and ethnic conflicts. For a detailed analysis of ethnic based conflicts in the 20th century see: Gurr, Ted R. Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflict, U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1993, and Gurr, Ted R. People versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century, Washington, D.C United States Institute of Peace, 2000.

     

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imagine how those negative attitudes towards them can be easily converted in violence and

explicit racist attacks and pogroms against them, as it already happened in many democratic

countries of Europe, included the recent tragic events in Italy.4 The third section will further

analyze the role of media and public opinion in shaping a concept of national identity and

their possible, positive or negative contribution, to the creation of a new, inclusive, more

cosmopolitan concept of Nation-State and national identity, one that recognizes the diversity

of contemporary multiethnic societies. It will be underlined as an enlightened media discourse

can contribute to a more pluralistic and heterogeneous society where the ethnic minorities

would be subjected to a lesser degree of discrimination and prejudices, enjoying the full range

of human rights, which is the aim of both national constitutions and international legal

treaties. A fourth section will analyze as an example the actual situation of Roma in Italy,

through different reports and statistics proving their tangible discrimination through both

media practices and public policies. Some examples from Italian press coverage will be used

in order to illustrate the relation between media and discrimination practices towards

minorities. The final section will discuss some recommendations and proposals for action.

1. Nationalism and Nation-Sate, New Racism and the Power of Media.

The peace of Westphalia (1648) is commonly considered as the beginning of a new political

and territorial order in Europe, assisting to the rise of the modern concept of Nation-State, a

state conceived with well-defined territorial borders, a single cultural/social identity, common

language, values and history. The Treaty of Westphalia initiated a new political order based

upon the concept of a sovereign state and the related national identity was thus defined by its

territorial and ethno-cultural characteristics rather then its religious or monarchical features.

A working definition of Nation-State is provided for example by Valery Tishkov, which

defines states as “self-identifies deriving their political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign

entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit”. The state is a political and geopolitical

entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "Nation-State" implies that the

two geographically coincide, and this distinguishes the Nation State from the other types of

state, which historically preceded it (Tishkov 2000: 627).

The last two hundred years of European political history have therefore witnessed the rise and

the legitimization of the modern concept of Nation-State which have a tendency to become an

                                                                                                               4 Compare with paragraph 4 of this essay.

     

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“ethnic State”, that is to say a “State which belong to an ethnic majority” (Gheorghe N.,

Acton T. 1994: 29).

This idea of “state unity” was often put into practice through a policy of socio-cultural

homogenization and political integration of the population of a State, and frequently imposed

by hegemonic political élites to subordinate social groups considered as socially marginal.

The rise of Nation-States in fact required the construction of a national identity, an identity

that was supposed to be different from “others” not belonging to “us”, to the nation.

The identity of a nation, in this way, was directly interlinked with the creation of “the

Others”, conceived at the same time as a concern and a threat to the majority society. In this

way, “we” are always described as good, rational, modern, law-abiding, gender-conscious,

tolerant and “them”, the “others”, are described as backward, traditionalist, criminal and so

on (Brune 2004: 394) implying at the same time, the West’s hegemony over the East, the

supremacy of rationality over irrationality, of Enlightment over traditionalism and so on.5

As explained by Edward Said in his classical book Orientalism (1978), it is possible to retrace

the origin of negative stereotypes towards minorities considering the Western historical

background of colonization. The age of colonization and imperialization contributed to

forming an unfair and unbalanced view of non-European people and cultures. In his book,

Said underlines the term “Orientalism” as a collection of false preconceptions characterizing

Western attitudes toward non-western countries. This body of scholarship is marked by a

"subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their

culture." He therefore argues that a long tradition of romanticized images of Asia and the

Middle East in Western culture has served as an implicit justification for European and the

American colonial and imperial ambitions (Said 1979).

It should be noticed however that, as underlined by Carolyn Vogler among other scholars, it is

a dangerous practice to consider national citizenship as “an exclusive club based on social

closure against those not seen as belonging to the nation”, being this a “very powerful basis

for the play of unconscious paranoid processes in which members of a nation are able to rid

themselves of bad objects and destructive impulses by projecting them onto commonly shared

and accepted external enemies” (Vogler 2002: 62).

The contraposition between “us” and “them” can become dangerous and create social

conflicts when “we” are always defined as good, rational, modern and law-abiding, and

                                                                                                               5 Please refer also to: Anderson, B., (2006), Imagined Communities, Verso Books, Rev. Ed edition, in which Benedict Anderson reflects on the origin and global spread of nationalisms and examines the creation of “imagined communities” of nationality.

     

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“them” are always defined as bad, irrational, barbaric, traditional and criminals. Such

contraposition can in fact lead, as it happens many times, to alarmist and populist feelings and

to a general negative attitude towards migrants and foreigners, weakening social cohesion and

solidarity with migrants.

A typical example is the media’s description of Muslims as a violent and dangerous

community, potential terrorists and disrespectful of women and host society, a picture that can

easily lead to the assumption that all Muslims are the same and that a direct link exists

between ethnic minorities in general and criminality.6

The same applies to Roma people, typically portrayed by media and public discourse as a

"social problem", responsible for their own marginalization and misery, disrespectful or not

willing to integrate with the rest of the population in the host society, confirming and

reinforcing a long series of stereotypes by which Roma are defined as untrustworthy,

dishonest, dirty, lazy, violent, and often as criminals, thieves, or kidnappers (Human Rights

First 2008: 108).

The Council of Europe, in collaboration with the European Commission, in the framework of

The Dosta! Campaign,7 has listed in its report at least 16 emblematic stereotypes concerning

Roma people underlining how discrimination and prejudice is deeply rooted in European

democratic societies and how those stereotypes are surprisingly most often not even

conceived as such:

“Those who suffer from them have to engage in the tiring task of convincing others that they are being discriminated for no reason. One obvious sign of anti-Gypsyism is the fact that many people who have never had close, personal contact with Roma are nonetheless able to provide a detailed picture of them. How they look, live, and behave. Very often the behaviour of one individual is automatically applied to all ‘Gypsies’. The (negative) behaviour is attributed to Romani culture, not to the individual in question” (COE, EC 2006: 5) Such old prejudices keep being repeated in the media discourses finally assume the form of

“unofficial truth”. These forms of racism and subtle discrimination are particularly dangerous

and “may hurt even more, especially when they seem to be so normal, so natural, and so

commonsensical to those who engage in such discourse and interaction” (Van Dijk 2000: 34).

                                                                                                               6 For more detail information regarding the link between ethnic groups and criminality please refer to: Maneri M. and Ter Wal Jessica, ‘The Criminalisation of Ethnic Groups: an Issue for Media Analysis’, pp. 1-28, in Forum: Qualitative Social Research, Vol. 6, No 3, 2005. 7Awareness raising campaign launched by the Council of Europe, in collaboration with the European commission in 2006. It has been implemented in five Eastern European countries, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in 2006-2007, as well as launched in Moldova and Ukraine in 2008 and in Croatia, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia in 2009.

     

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Generally, since the rise of the modern Nation-State, the role of media in shaping public

opinion has been essential in disseminating official policies and creating a picture of the new

Nation-State based on characteristics such as a common language, cultural heritage and

history. In this way, however, through mass media outlets and reviews, a false, imagined

picture of the nation has been spread.

Many scholars have challenged the “homogeneity” of Nation-state and the idea of a

homogenous culture and language as the main prerequisite of every Nation-State.8

The decolonization and globalization process together with the increased migrant and

refugees movements, the advent of the new information era, as well as of the new enlarged

European Union, brought a fast and complete metamorphosis of the old concept of Nation-

State further weakening the old Westphalian system. Globalization and mass migration

especially during the 20th century in Europe “have radically challenged the idea of a

sovereign, territorial defined Nation State, with a single social/cultural identity and a

common language and history” (Kianzad 2008: 10).

By closer examination the idea of an ethno-cultural homogenous state where people speak the

same language, have a similar ethnic background and share the same religion has always been

only an illusion. “Homogeneous states” of the old Westphalian system were never all that

homogeneous as it seems as well as the national identity has never been so exclusive. The

advent of the globalization era has finally outdated the old idea of homogenous nation states,

even though the majority of western countries are still reluctant in accepting these changes,

while countless religious, ethnic, linguistic and cultural communities now inhabit European

countries and cities.

As highlighted through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, many forms of

violations of universal human rights have nowadays changed and assumed a different

character: instead of a visible, often aggressive type of discrimination which can be applied to

“a time long gone, when colonies, apartheid and slavery were still in effect”; today the (new)

racism and discrimination is expressed in a more subtle, symbolic and indirect way, in a

sublime and physically non-aggressive form, tacitly accepted by the majority of the

population. In this case the media have a central role as they represent the most important

carrier of messages and values in the information society. Many forms of the new racism are

in fact ‘discursive’, expressed by daily texts and talks (Kianzad, 2008: 8).                                                                                                                8 See: Kianzad, B., (2008), Media and Minority Rights. The role of media in promoting social cohesion and enforcing human rights of ethnic minorities in nation states, University essay from Lunds universitet.  

     

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Expressed with the words of Teun A.Van Dijk:

“In many respects, contemporary forms of racism are different from the old racism of slavery, segregation, apartheid, lynchings, and systematic discrimination, of white superiority feelings, and of explicit derogation in public discourse and everyday conversation. The New Racism (Barker 1981) wants to be democratic and respectable, and hence first off denies that it is racism. Real Racism, in this framework of thought, exists only among the Extreme Right. In the New Racism, minorities are not biologically inferior, but different. They have a different culture, although in many respects there are deficiencies, such as single-parent families, drug abuse, lacking achievement values, and dependence on welfare and affirmative action pathologies that need to be corrected of course”(Van Dijk 2000: 33-34, emphasis added).

The consequences of those forms of discursive racism in the lives of members of minority

groups do not need to be demonstrated. Negative stereotyping concretely affect and worsen

the possibilities of minorities to an equal enjoyment of all basic human rights such as housing,

health care, education, employment, participation to political life, access to law, justice and

legal remedies. Official or unofficial discrimination against Roma extends in fact to the full

range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and excludes many Roma

communities across Europe from the full enjoyment of human rights.

In conclusion, it has been widely demonstrated how the role of media and other intellectual

élites in shaping the public opinion and disseminating official policies among the population

is of extreme importance, especially when talking about social cohesion and formation of a

heterogeneous national identity.

My point in this essay is that the media has an important role in social cohesion being able to

change the way in which people from different communities view and relate to each other.

A fair and balanced reporting respectful of the identity of the migrants will help bridging the

gap between the different ethnic enclaves, while an unfair and limited reporting will lead to

prejudices and discrimination.

2. Roma: the Eternally Discriminated People.

In line with the main scope of this essay I will highlight the link between media practices and

prejudices against ethnic minorities, with a special focus on the situation of Roma people,

considered as one of the most significant example of discrimination and stereotypization of an

ethnic group in its relation with the activities of the media.

As underlined by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) which analyzed

the situation of Roma in Europe in a ‘data focus’ report in 2009:

     

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“Of all the groups surveyed by the FRA, the Roma emerged as the group most vulnerable to discrimination and crime (…). The report on the Roma reveals a bleak picture for the estimated 12 million Roma in the EU. Roma reported the highest overall levels of discrimination across all areas surveyed. 66-92% of Roma (depending on the country) did not report their most recent experience of discrimination to any competent authority. 65-100% of the Roma respondents reported lack of confidence in law enforcement and justice structures”(FRA,EU-MIDIS Report 2009).      For these reasons they were chosen by the European Agency as the first group on which to

focus in its EU-MIDIS Report.9

Romani Rose10 confirms these data and perceptions highlighting as “the media plays an

important role in the characterization of racist stereotypes, particularly through the portrayal

of criminals as "Roma" or "Sinti", or other such discriminatory terms in press or television

reports”. In this way, instead of effectively protecting the Roma minorities from

discrimination and racism, many media as well as politicians in different countries of Europe,

still deny the existence of racism and discrimination against them, contributing to “the

dissemination of stereotypes and stirring up antiziganistic feeling in the population” (Romani

2006: 2).

To mention just one example, perhaps the most significant one, although the Porrajmos, the

Romani Holocaust11, during the II World War killed more than a half of Europe's Roma

population, the international community, together with the public opinion, still barely

acknowledged this fact. Nobody was called to testify on behalf of the Romani victims at the

Nuremberg Trials, and no war crimes reparations have ever been paid to Romanies as people.

What is more, there have even been several attempts to diminishing the Porrajmos and to

deny Roma people as being part of the Holocaust and, still today, neo-Nazi activity in many

parts of central and Eastern Europe disseminate through the web racism and hate propaganda

against Roma and Sinti and makes the Romanies its prime target of racial violence. What is

more, attacks increasingly emanate from the security forces themselves and only rarely can

                                                                                                               9 EU-MIDIS stands for the “European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey”. It is the first EU-wide survey to ask immigrant and ethnic minority groups about their experiences of discrimination and criminal victimization in everyday life (FRA, EU-MIDIS Report 2009: 2). 10 Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma since 1982 and currently manager of the Documentary and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose is also a member of the directorate of the International Movement against Discrimination and Racism, founded in Tokyo, Japan, in 1988. 11 The Porrajmos (also Porajmos, literally, Devouring in some dialects of the Romani language) is a Romani term introduced by Romani scholar and activist Ian Hancock to describe attempts by Nazi Germany, the Independent State of Croatia and its allies to exterminate most of the Romani people of Europe as part of the Holocaust. Because the Romani communities of Eastern Europe were less organized than the Jewish, the persecution and murder of the Roma and Sinti has been little studied and largely overshadowed by the Shoah communities and it is also more difficult to assess the actual number of victims, though it is believed to range from 220,000 to 1,500,000.

     

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the perpetrators expect consistent prosecution and conviction (Hancock 2004: 383-396). As

underlined by the Council of Europe report of 2006, “while anti-Semitism is today, fortunately

condemned at all levels (social and political), anti-Gypsyism is even not recognized as an

existent phenomenon and therefore condemned” and Roma still experience discrimination,

exclusion and persecution in their everyday life (COE, EC 2006: 4).

In many countries there is “neither an awareness of the historical dimension of the crimes of

genocide committed against Roma nor of the present-day racism that Roma and Sinti are

subjected to in many counties of Europe” (Romani 2006: 2).The recent events in the Ponticelli

district of Naples in Italy12, the forced sterilization of Roma women, documented in the Czech

Republic and Slovakia in the recent years13, the discriminatory practice of sending Roma

children to special schools for the mentally handicapped children14, are just some examples of

the present-day discrimination.

Roma are in general mainly described as a "social problem" and are unfairly blamed as the

main responsible for their own misery and marginalization, considered as co-responsible for

their alienation. Even if they have been recognized as a national minority by most of the

European Governments, their legal status appears to be different in the different States of the

Union and their position depends both on the States ratification of international conventions

and on the adoption of domestic and intrastate legislations. Although according to documents

Roma should be considered as a true minority group with specific rights, in some countries

(included Italy), they are still not recognized as a national or linguistic minority.

Furthermore, in the mind of public opinion, they are still associated with homeless “nomads”

in contrasts with the fact that members of this minority group “are citizens of their respective

countries of nationality for many centuries, particularly in Europe”(Romani 2006: 1).In the

common imaginary of people, they are still perceived as pesty, violent, child kidnappers,                                                                                                                12 A violent anti-Roma attack that took recently place in Italy in May 2008: Roma families in Naples fled after angry locals set fire to their squatter homes. 13 Despite a report confirming the continued use of coercive sterilization on Roma (Gypsy) women, women's advocates charge that the Czech government has failed to take action to stop these atrocities. The Czech Health Ministry acknowledges sterilization procedures were not followed properly, but refuses to provide compensation to victims. Furthermore, many hospitals continue to deny that their actions were illegal, claiming medical reasons for sterilization. Advocates for the victims say that the real reason for the practice is racism. In response to their unjust treatment, many Roma women are now taking their cases to court. In 2005, Helena Ferencikova became the first Roma woman to sue the hospital that sterilized her. The District Court of Ostrava in Czech Republic ruled that the hospital should acknowledge malpractice and must issue her a formal apology. The hospital denied Ferencikova’s demand for compensation, and both parties are appealing. Associated Press 6/17/06; Newsdesk.org 6/12/06; European Roma Rights Centre 2/2/06, 3/14/06; Final Statement of the Public Defender of Rights 2005. 14 For further detailed information regarding Roma’s children segregation in schools, please refer to: European Commission, Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity, Unit G2, Segregation of Roma Children in Education. Addressing Structural Discrimination through the Race Equality Directive (2007).

     

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thieves and other negative stereotypes. It is in fact true that, as underlined by Karin Waringo

during its speech presented at the European Parliament in 2006: “if we think about Roma in

the media we will probably all recall at least one incidence where Roma were portrayed by

media in a particularly loathsome way” (Waringo2006).

This discrimination, often based on ethnic or religious background, is partly linked with an

unfair media description and attitude towards ethnic minorities. Indeed, the European

governments perceived the increase of migration in Western Europe after the fall of

Communism primarily as a problem, which gave rise to many difficulties, a problem with an

“international dimension” (Liegeois, Nicolae 1995: 17).

The situation gave rise at the same time to much discussion and the involvement of the media

in this sense was particularly high: the issue of massive migration of Roma/Gypsies in

Europe, for example, and the relative consequences for local populations, has often been

exaggerated and little or not accurate information has been provided for understanding the

real reasons of these movements. It should be borne in mind that there are different reasons

behind the migration of Roma/Gypsies in Europe, reasons which are often not exclusively

linked to their particular “nomadic lifestyle”, but connected to various forms of persecution:

banishment, expulsion, organized hunts, forced settlement, inter-state agreements dictating

where they can reside. Most often moving is just the only option for Gypsies in order to avoid

persecutions. The 1990s offer a vivid illustration of the push factors involved: physical

attacks, racist pogroms, murders and burnt-out homes. The persecution of Roma in Eastern

Europe did not end with the fall of Communism. In fact, their conditions had improved

somewhat under regimes whose Marxist-Leninist ideologies required the Roma be treated as a

socioeconomic group rather than a race. But when free-market economies replaced state

socialism, the Roma were once again viewed as foreigners.15

The first waves of migrants arrived in Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. The

60s assisted to the appearance of migrants coming from the former European colonies, the 70s

was the age of the political refugees, followed by war-refugees in the 80s and 90s and among

them, many Roma people following the collapse of Communism and the recent wars in

Yugoslav and especially in Kosovo. The same period witnessed a massive migration by guest

workers changing the demographic structure of many European countries, which is still going

on.                                                                                                                15 For further detailed information regarding the situation of Roma people in countries of Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism, please refer to: Guy, Will, (ed.), (2001), Between past and future. The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, University of Hertfordshire Press.

     

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Since the early 1990s, Roma people have been the subject of an intense debate, as a

consequence of the rapid social, political and economic changes taking place in Central and

Eastern Europe following the collapse of Communism, the recent wars in Yugoslav and

especially in Kosovo, and the enlargement first of the Council of Europe in the early 1990's,

and then of the EU, having Romania and Bulgaria the last two countries of the former East

Block acceding the European Union on 1 January 2007.

At the same time, an increased concern has arisen with the treatment and protection of

minorities in Europe, whether they are national, ethnic, religious or cultural. The minorities

interests, cultural and political claims, are now officially recognized not only by the most

important European organizations (the European Union, the Council of Europe and the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), but also by the legislative

bodies and governments of most European States, even thought the internal legislation of

integration policies and migrant rights differs a lot among the different countries.

However, even if the end of Second War and the fall of the Nazi regime led to a tough

reaction against racism in Europe, the migrant waves of 60s throughout the 90s encountered,

and still encounters, the strong opposition of rightwing, populist parties such as the “Lega

Nord” in Italy, Jörg Haider in Austria, Le Pen in France, the “Deutsche Volks Union” in

Germany, Pim Fortyn in Netherlands and so on.

As concerning Roma, notwithstanding the international mobilitization, discrimination is still

commonly widespread in all the main basic services and sectors of public life: housing, health

care, education, employment, participation to political life, access to law, justice and legal

remedies. In some cases, media have a strong responsibility in discrimination practices while

making use of a racist, discriminatory discourse, depicting ethnic minorities as a danger and a

threat to the entire society and excluding them from the concept of national identity. It has

been empirically proved that media use a racist discourse when they talk about ethnic

minorities, and especially about Roma people: the clear focus of the majority of reports is on

violence, criminality and immigration as a threat to the public safety. Roma are generally

described as a real “enemy within”, as dangerous, natural born criminals, drug dealers; they

are accused of fraud, pick pocketing, stealing babies, thieves and swindlers.

To mention just an example, reported by Valeriu Nicolae in his article, Gypsies are described

as:

“disgusting beings" with "filthy and lewd women" dragging their "broods that shit on themselves" [...] "a living proof we come from monkeys", "hysterical", "cunning", "treacherous", "societal abortions" [...] "those gypsies multiply like rabbits (my apologies to rabbits) only to get their stinky dirty paws on

     

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the welfare of some poor children [...] the gypsies steal, are rapists."(Valeriu2009: 3).

The excerpt is taken from a Romanian newspaper, Flacara Iasului on 27 and 28 September

2007 and is signed by two members of the Romanian Writers Union, one of whom is the

spokesperson for the museum of literature (Valeriu 2009: 3).

Such racist portrayals and comments are not limited only to the Eastern European’s press but

are broadly diffused also in the Western media. For example in Italy, Roberto Maroni,

Minister of the Interior, following a report on the burning of a settlement of around 100

Romanian in Catania (Sicily), tried to downplay the attacks stating that “this is what happens

when Gypsies steal babies or when Romanians commit sexual violence”.

Roberto Maroni is also the creator of a plan for fingerprinting all Roma residents in camps,

including children, considering this a solution to inadequate housing problems and rising

crime rates in Italy, an action explicitly condemned by Unicef, the European Commission and

the Council of Europe. The European Union parliament in particular, called the fingerprinting

clear racial discrimination and ordered the Italians to stop the process. An assembly resolution

adopted in Strasbourg stated the measure flouts EU human rights treaties and that citizens of

Roma (Gypsy) origin must be treated no differently than those of other ethnic groups, who are

not fingerprinted.

As concerning incidents of hate promotion through Internet/ Facebook, in 2008, as reported

by the EU Observer, the European Parliament's Socialist deputies asked the administrators of

Facebook to remove anti-Gypsy hate groups from its social networking Web site: German

MEP and Socialist group leader Martin Schulz said the groups have links to known fascist

organizations and should be banned from Facebook. Some of the Facebook groups attacking

Roma people, all based in Italy, had names such as "Let's burn them all", "Turn gypsies into

fuel" and "Useful work for gypsies: testers of gas chambers." 16

Furthermore, there is an almost complete absence of mention and analysis concerning the

reasons behind acts of criminality conducted by Roma as well as by other minorities. The

analysis of the context is often completely disregarded (problems such illiteracy, poverty,

social exclusion, discrimination are not taken into consideration). Us underlined by Valeriu in

his article: “The clear focus of most reporting is on criminality, violence, and immigration as a threat to public safety. This causes a biased portrayal of the relation of ethnicity to violence and clearly obstructs other, more important aspects such as social exclusion, hidden violence, forced segregation,

                                                                                                               16 Source: United Press International.

     

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environment, education, perspective, social class and other possible causes of criminal behaviour” (Valeriu2009: 4). At the same time there is often an undervaluation or no mention at all when Roma are the

victims and not the perpetrators. The accomplishments of many Romani lawyers, doctors,

parliamentarians, university professors and researchers go often completely unnoticed. The

alternative image is a folkloristic, unrealistic and obsolete picture of Roma people, depicted as

free-lovers, hot-tempered, unpredictable people, still providing a distorted and unrealistic

image of Roma people and culture.

3. Media Discourse and Minority Rights.

As broadly underlined in the previous paragraphs of this essay, “media has become the most

important actor in the information age, with an almost unlimited power to define and

communicate messages throughout the society” and to disseminate an image of the country

through “different lines made up from ethnicity, religion, class, territorial borders”(Kianzad

2008: 4).

The most important question however is not how minorities are portrayed by media in local

news but how can media in Western nation states promote a better defense of human rights

for ethnic minorities through the promotion of social cohesion and harmony and an

heterogeneous, multicultural and more realistic picture of a country and national identity.

Media have in fact a choice and are able, through their different practices, either to support or

halt human rights and social cohesion.

Through the use of different reports and statistics and also some examples of media practices

in Italy and Romania, it has been proved how the discrimination and violation of human

rights of ethnic minorities is in part a direct or indirect effect of the biased media portrayals of

those ethnic minorities.

Even though it is difficult to establish a specific link between media practices and human

rights protection, because media in itself are not party to any specific international convention

on human rights; it is clear that states, which are party to those conventions, have to assume

control and responsibility, ensuring the appropriate functioning of media through national

legislations and other government initiatives such as ethic codes for journalists, directives and

punishments. Governments should speak out against any form of violence motivated by racial

hatred, react and punish everyone, including high level politicians, who use discriminating

and contemptuous remarks against Roma. They should investigate and bring perpetrators to

     

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justice. Public opinion and civil society should have a role in this process as well; especially

through awareness raising campaigns and educational project, in order to change those

negative perceptions among the population.

At the European level, the Framework Decision on Racism and Xenophobia (FDRX), adopted

by the EU on 19 April 2007, which started to be implemented in 2009, makes any incitement

to racism an EU wide punishable crime and represents a good step forward in this direction. It

foresees between one and three years of imprisonment for anyone who publicly incites racial

hatred and xenophobia, including through the distribution of texts, photos or other material

directed against a group or an individual because of their race, color, religion, nationality or

ethnic origin, or who denies or crudely minimizes genocide, war crimes and crimes against

the humanity. However more should be done especially in order to raise awareness among the

public opinion and change the obsolete and stereotyped public image of ethnic minorities

perceived by the majority population. As recognized by the European Commission among

other major international organizations, and notwithstanding the fact that all EU countries

have transposed the EU Directive on Racial Equality, which prohibits discrimination on the

grounds of racial or ethnic origin, “yet many Roma are still victims of prejudice and deep-

rooted social exclusion”(European Commission, Justice, 2012).

4. Case Study: Roma’s Minorities in Italy.

After visiting Roma settlements in Italy, Viktória Mohacsi, an Hungarian Roma member of

the European Parliament, wrote in her report entitled Journey across the Italy of racial

hatred:  

 “I traveled around the whole of Europe to analyze and observe conditions in Roma camps. I never saw such a degree of human rights violations as that which my people are subjected to by the Italian government. In addition to poverty, inequality and segregation, I witnessed ethnic operations similar to those of the Third Reich. The authorities take children away from their parents through iniquitous means to prevent Roma families from living in Italy and raising their children there” (Cerino 2009).

These words might seem over-exaggerate, but they reflect quite concretely the reality of

Roma conditions in Italy where racism and discrimination reach sometimes even the highest

political levels.

For example, in an act of complete disregard for the grim historical echoes prompted by mob

violence, camp clearances, arbitrary arrest and deportations, ethnic profiling and the

fingerprinting of Romani children, Franco Frattini, former vice president of the European

     

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Commission responsible for "Justice, Freedom and Security", and former Italian foreign

minister, chose the occasion to defend the emergency measures and present himself as the

saviour of Romani children. In an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz he said: "Hundreds

of [Roma] children have asked us to fingerprint them so that we could give them temporary

papers [...] these children must be protected. By giving them papers, I am actually saving

them" (Primor 2010).

Roberto Maroni, former Minister of the Italian Interior, asked the judge who suspended the

sentence against two Roma women accused in Lecco (Italy), of trying to steal a child, to

consider changing her job and had strong words for the Roma.

The prefect of Rome, Carlo Mosca, in declaring his intent to sign expulsion orders without

hesitation, told the press that “the hard line was necessary” to deal with “these beasts”

(Human Rights First, 2008: 111) and unfortunately, there are many more examples like these

(some of them already previously mentioned in this essay).

The situation of Roma in Italy is indeed frightening: as victims of all sorts of discriminations

they do not benefit from any kind of support and protection by the State, which remain

indifferent and passive to the difficulties Roma encounter in their daily life.

The conditions of Roma people worsened even more after the spring of 2008, following an

increase of racist movements, accompanied by a multiplication of legislative measures with

discriminatory character (Human Rights First, 2008: 111). A violent anti-Roma incident took

recently place in Italy in May 2008: in the Ponticelli district, in Naples a Roma girl was

accused of trying to snatch a child. After that episode, on 10 May 2008, the intolerance of the

population towards the nomads, who had been living for years on the periphery of the city,

has become more and more violent, supported by the popular and racist propaganda of the

Lega Nord (northern league) political party. In the days following the supposed kidnap

attempt, numerous attacks were carried out against the Roma. Of the thirteen Roma camps

that stood on the periphery of Naples in May 2008, only three remained, maybe four. 17

As observed in the Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial

discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Doudou Diène, in 2007:

“There is a lack of readily accessible data and information – from both official and unofficial sources – on the extent and nature of racist violence and crime in Italy. While this gap is consistent with previous years, it is worth underlining that 2007 saw a disturbing escalation of the negative role played by the media and prominent representatives of public institutions and political leaders in                                                                                                                17 For more detailed information please refer to: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Incident Report – Violent Attacks Against Roma in the Ponticelli district of Naples, Italy, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2008.  

     

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disseminating prejudice, stereotypes and racist ideas. Against this background, a range of extreme right-wing political parties and organizations currently exist in Italy that variously promote anti-immigrant sentiments. The range of opinions expressed both within and between different right-wing xenophobic movements appears at times both contradictory and confusing; however, the cement that holds these various parties and organizations together is a strong xenophobic stance. The murder of an Italian woman by a Romanian Roma immigrant led to widespread public outburst of xenophobia by both media and prominent politicians against Romanian immigrants in general and Romanian Roma in particular. There are also a number of skinhead groups in existence in Italy, such as Veneto Fronte Skinheads and the Azione Skinheads. NGOs indicate that acts of racist aggression and violence, alongside specifically anti-Semitic acts of intimidation, are carried out by these skinhead groups” (Doudou 2007).

At the same time, the behavior of public authorities is characterized by either a complete

absence of action or by the adoption of various legal measures and policies obviously limiting

individual freedoms and rights of this ethnic minority.

The lack of action in public policies is visible from the fact that no law has been elaborated so

far taking into account the special situation and conditions of Roma people and nothing was

done in order to improve their miserable life conditions.

On the other side the adoption of various legal measures such as the ongoing ‘census’ of the

Romani population and the transportation of Roma people to special camps far away from the

city centers in order to ‘sanitize’ them, are clearly directed at discriminating Roma people.

Growing fear and hatred of Roma among the general population, on the one hand, and the

hostile approach of the national government and some local administrations on the other

hand, creates a witch-hunt atmosphere directed against even long-established Romani and

Sinti Italian citizens.

Even though Italy is not the only country where problems concerning Roma people are

widespread, what makes it unique is the fact that Italian Government at its highest level has

made a policy of promoting racial animosity and xenophobia: in particular, discriminatory

policies are carried out by political authorities with the support of the media, transmitting only

the negative side of the situation.

Roma people are not acknowledged as a true minority group with their own specific needs

and in the meantime their life and the conditions in which the live are degrading even more:

Roma reach growing levels of poverty and the fields where they live, mostly illegal, are badly

equipped: they lack basic public services such as water, electricity, sewerages, having a high

degree of insecurity and increasing mortality.

Most of Roma do not have documents; identification or permit to stay and it is indeed very

difficult for them to acquire the Italian citizenship. One of the most tragic consequences of

this situation is that their children are stateless and it is becoming even more difficult for them

     

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to receive education (ECRI 2006).The health care system is of increased concern as well and

the spread of illnesses is very easy as far as they do not receive any vaccination and medical

care.

The state is still the one held responsible to respect fundamental rights in its own territory but

the transfer of responsibilities to the local level do not exclude the government of any

obligation to seek that the strategies are effectively applied and that the municipalities dispose

of the necessary resources.18

In May 2008, the situation in Italy was taken under control by a nongovernmental coalition

including the Open Society Institute, the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, the

European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), Romani Criss, and the Roma Civic Alliance in

Romania. The resulting report, ‘Security a la Italiana’, found a dramatic rise in both the

frequency and gravity of attacks to Roma since the government of Silvio Berlusconi took

office. The report stated that Italian authorities had “failed to condemn acts of violent

aggression against Roma and not one person has yet to be held legally accountable for at

least 8 incidents of anti-Romani pogroms leading to the razing of Romani camps with

Molotov cocktails in Italy” (OSI 2008). The intensity of the recent anti-Roma violence in Italy

should raise awareness regarding the minority issue in all of Europe. (Human Rights First,

2008: 115).

5. Conclusions, recommendations and proposals for action.

As underlined by the European Commission in its report on ‘Racism, Xenophobia and the

Media, Towards respect and understanding of all religions and cultures’: “Open and inclusive dialogue is the best way to address the challenge of racism and xenophobia and to promote freedom of expression on the one hand and respect for religious beliefs on the other” (EC, EUMC 2006: 3)19.

Media in Western nation states have an important role as far as they can facilitate the full

enjoyment of human rights for ethnic minorities by promoting a more heterogeneous and

pluralistic picture of a country, society and national identity.                                                                                                                18 Human Rights Commissioner to the Council of Europe, Final report on the situation regarding human rights of Roma, Sinti and Travellers in Europe, 15/02/2006, CommDH(2006), paragraph 59. 19 European Commission, European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), Austrian Presidency of the European Union, (2006). Racism, Xenophobia and the Media, Towards respect and understanding of all religions and cultures. An EU Seminar in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Vienna 22-23 May 2006, Conference Report & Documentation.

     

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More precisely media should report in “a more comprehensive and balanced way on issues

that have an impact on ethnicity, race and religion while respecting freedom of expression

and editorial independence” through promoting:

“- A better representation of minorities in newsrooms through targeted training and recruitment; - More diversity in mainstream and non-fiction programmes; - Making training in intercultural understanding a standard component of journalist education; - Networking and sharing of information and best practice among media from different regions (twinning and exchange programmes, training, forums and regular contact); - More dialogue between ethnic, religious and cultural groups and the media to improve the quality of reporting, to be fully aware of the sensitivities around intercultural relations, and to avoid negative stereotyping and language inciting to hatred; - Improved self-regulation and more own initiatives by media to promote ethical and professional standards in reporting; - A greater emphasis on comprehensive reporting, including minority voices and highlighting positive intercultural initiatives and examples of good practice; - Continued European level support for intercultural dialogue and inter- faith initiatives; - A forum for media owners to discuss racism, xenophobia and related issues and the impact of media reporting on intercultural relations”.(EC, EUMC 2006: 6).

It should be clear that freedom of expression and the mutual understanding and respect for the

cultures and religions of others are not incompatible but complementary.

The media is also our major ally in further developing a broad public awareness about how

cultural differences enrich our societies and everyday life: reflecting cultural diversity in

mainstream programmes, employing journalists of different cultural backgrounds and inter-

cultural training of journalists, can reinforce this positive role that the media can play.

In this framework, it is also important to recognize that minority rights should supplement

individual human rights mechanisms. This has been recognized to some extent also by the

European human rights system. It has been proven in fact that individual rights violations

have arisen from the rejection of collective rights (O’Nions 2007: 33): that is why the latter

should be regarded as a supplement. The protection of human rights in general and minority

rights in particular is necessary to promote international and regional security and to prevent

ethnic conflicts and tensions and the terms “minority rights” and “human rights” should be

considered as not contradictory but complementary.

Positive obligations of the state alongside with negative obligations, non-interference,

protection of individual as well as collective rights, should be all considered for the safeguard

of minorities. This is even more necessary nowadays when we are experiencing a change in

model of our society switching from the old concept of nation-state to societies that are

always more multiethnic. The issue of minority rights becomes fundamental to preserve the

     

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stability and prosperity of the multireligious/multicultural modern Nation-State system. That

is the reason why, as underlined by Dersso in his article, a new “multicultural conception of

minority rights” is necessary, namely a new conception of a modern multiethnic state

composed of different overlapping ethnic groups and opposite to the classical concept of

Nation-State. Collective rights as well as liberal individual rights and entitlements are

necessary, that is to say not only a general negative principle of non-discrimination against

minorities but also positive actions in order to guarantee them with full participation in social

life and political decision-making, a recognition of minority cultures through institutions and

symbols of the state and a more equilibrate distribution of resources (Dersso, 2007: 10).

The thesis is that, since we are living in a time of multiculturalism and globalization where

largely homogenous societies are becoming ethnically diverse; a new, inclusive definition of

national identity is required, which recognizes members of minorities as an integral part of the

whole and not as simply “others” or inside-outsiders. Such measures are necessary for the

benefit of the whole society in order to effectively resolve ethnonational conflicts and issues

of political power distribution.

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