”This is what Hitler did. First they register us. Then they get rid of us”, says 44 year old Marcello Demeter in Skarpnäck, southern Stockholm.Swedish Police Registers Romanis, writes Swedish Newspaper DN
In September this year (2013) a Swedish newspaper published a report about the Swedish police collecting and maintaining a Databank on Romani people in Sweden.
Almost a month later KOP-Berlin – which has been campaigning agains Racial Profiling and criminalization of racial, ethnich and religious minorities – sent an eMail to the Swedish Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO). KOP-Berlin received a reply on 8 November. We publish the correspondence and the link to the revealing article on the racist praxis of Sweden’s Police. We hope that grassroot and anti-racist organisations in other European countries would also try to find outabout similar practices of the respective police departments and governments.
Dear Sir/Mdm,
Could you please send me information about illegal data collection of Roma people in Sweden as well as information regarding what your office has undertaken so far to check that system of racial profiling.
Thanking you in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Biplab Basu
21.10.2013, Berlin
Dear Biplab Basu,
I am sorry that you had to wait for an answer but that was due to sick leave. The article that started the debate about data collection based on ethnicity you can find on following website: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/over-one-thousand-children-illegally-registered/.
Except for the Commission on Security and Integrity Protection who makes their own investigation, see http://www.sakint.se/Ny-sida.html, the Swedish Equality Ombudsman has initiated a formal inquiry based on the Swedish anti-discrimination act in order to investigate the police.
The Equality Ombudsman has for the last ten years together with Roma spread light on the discrimination faced by Roma in Sweden. Since the implementation of the European Community directive against discrimination into Swedish law in 2003 the Ombudsman has received over 300 complaints from Roma and after investigation concluded that discrimination was present and possible to prove in about 30 cases. Court judgments have been issued in about ten cases and settlements were reached in about 20 cases. While these cases have been important in order to shed light on problems in society, they of course only constitute a very small part of the discrimination that Roma experience in their daily lives in Sweden. The Ombudsman has also beside its legal actions developed a rights based approach to addressing the problems at hand, including dialogue between local authorities and Roma with the aim to prevent and combat discrimination of Roma.
Best regards
Kerstin Jansson
International Secretary | Phone +46 8 120 20 797
The Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO)
Address PO Box 3686, SE-103 59 Stockholm | Visiting Address Torsgatan 11, Stockholm, Sweden | www.do.se | do@do.se
Switchboard +46 8 120 20 700 | Telefax +46 8 120 20 800 | Text telephone +46 8 120 20 820
The Equality Ombudsman (DO) works to combat discrimination and in other ways promotes equal rights and opportunities regardless of sex, transgender identity or expression, ethnicity, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age.