Commitments were made to eliminate segregation in education on grounds of ethnic origin,
but Roma continued to face discrimination in education, housing and health care. Slovakia
ignored rulings from the European Court of Human Rights and returned an asylum-seeker
to Algeria.
A new centre-right coalition government came to power in July. The government programme
adopted in August included the commitment to implement measures to eliminate segregation
in education on the basis of ethnic origin.
Discrimination against Roma continued at several levels. The Ministry of the Interior
reportedly announced that it had started working on a system of collection of data
on crimes committed by people living in Romani settlements. In September, the Minister
stated that “municipalities in the proximity of segregated settlements belong to areas
with higher criminality”.
In October, the Regional Court in Košice ruled that Roma were discriminated against
on the ground of their ethnic origin when they were prevented from entering one of
the cafés in the town of Michalovce; it was one of the first rulings of this kind.
However, the Court refused to grant any compensation to the victims.
Right to education
The CERD Committee published its concluding observations on Slovakia in March. It
reiterated its concerns about the de facto segregation of Romani children in education.
The Committee urged Slovakia to end and prevent such discrimination and to take into
account its close link to discrimination in housing and employment.
In August, the new government acknowledged the existence of ethnic segregation in
education as a systemic problem. However, in September the Ministry of Education denied
that segregation of Romani children was a serious issue, and alleged there had been
only a few complaints against this form of discrimination.
In November, the NGO Centre for Civil and Human Rights made a complaint to the Office
of the Regional Prosecutor regarding an order issued by the municipality of Prešov
in 2008, which allegedly breached the Anti-discrimination Act. The order established
catchment areas for the town’s seven elementary schools. The NGO claimed that the
municipality designated streets, in some cases even house numbers, in such a way that
streets primarily or exclusively inhabited by Roma fell under the catchment area of
one particular school, and as a result the school became progressively a Roma-only
school.
Housing rights
Several municipalities either adopted a decision to build or started building walls
to separate the areas where Roma live from the non-Roma parts of towns or villages.
Following the construction of a wall separating a Romani settlement from the rest
of the village of Ostrovany in 2009, the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights stated
that, while the construction did not amount to a discriminatory action, the municipality
had not sufficiently fulfilled their obligation to prevent discrimination. The Centre
also highlighted that the construction of walls represents social separation.
In August, the municipality of the town of Michalovce finished building a wall to
separate the Romani settlement and a non-Roma residential area of the town. Romani
inhabitants of the settlement referred to the barrier as the “Berlin Wall” and expressed
discontent about the separation. In September, the Ombudsperson held that the building
of the wall did not violate basic rights and freedoms.
In September, the municipality of Prešov erected a wall that separates the predominantly
Roma housing estate from the town. The mayor of Prešov allegedly stated that this
was how the municipality reacted to complaints about vandalism. The Slovak National
Centre for Human Rights held that the construction constituted an affirmation of inequality.
Nearly 90 Romani families in Plavecký Štvrtok, a village approximately 20km north
of Bratislava, were at risk of forced eviction from their homes. Since January, the
municipality had issued notices to 18 families asking them to demolish their homes
themselves, arguing that the families had failed to provide documents to prove the
houses were constructed in compliance with the law.
Enforced sterilization of Romani women
In March, the CERD Committee urged the authorities to establish clear guidelines to
ensure patients are fully informed before giving consent to sterilization and to ensure
that practitioners, as well as Romani women, are familiar with such guidelines. Five
cases involving allegations of enforced sterilizations of Romani women were pending
before the European Court of Human Rights. In two cases, the Court declared the case
applications admissible.
In November, the District Court in Košice held the first hearing in the case of the
ill-treatment by police of six Romani boys in April 2009. The Prosecutor General charged
10 police officers with abuse of powers, including racial motivation. Four of the
accused police officers faced charges of lack of due diligence, as they allegedly
witnessed the abuse without intervening. All of the accused police officers reportedly
pleaded not guilty and refused to testify at the court hearing. Three of them continued
to work for the police.
The authorities returned an individual to a country where he might have been at risk
of torture and other ill-treatment.
In April, the Ministry of Interior forcibly returned an asylum-seeker, Mustafa Labsi,
to Algeria, despite a 2008 ruling of the Constitutional Court that had halted an extradition
attempt on human rights grounds, particularly due to the risk of torture. Algeria
had requested Mustafa Labsi’s extradition in 2007, after convicting him in his absence
in 2005 for crimes of terrorism, and sentencing him to life imprisonment in 2008.
The European Court of Human Rights had also issued an order for interim measures in
August 2008 requiring the authorities not to extradite, until the appeals on his asylum
claim had been completed. Before his extradition in April, Mustafa Labsi had been
held in detention since 2007; in October, the Constitutional Court found that the
detention violated his right to freedom and security. At the end of the year, he was
being held in El Harrach prison in Algeria, awaiting trial on charges of belonging
to a “terrorist group abroad”.
The government agreed to accept three men formerly held in US custody at Guantánamo
Bay, and they were transferred to Slovakia on 5 January. The three were detained at
Medveďov centre for illegal migrants on their arrival. In June and July they went
on hunger strike to protest against their detention and poor living conditions. In
July, the government issued the three men with residence permits valid for five years.
According to the Slovak Family Planning Association, the top management of hospitals
often abused the right of conscientious objection in relation to abortion. As a result,
it was alleged that only one of the five public hospitals in Bratislava carried out
abortions because of the decisions of the hospital management. Despite recommendations
by the CEDAW Committee in 2008, the authorities had not issued regulations on invoking
conscientious objection as grounds for refusal to perform certain health procedures.
The organizers of Bratislava Pride had to change the route of the first LGBT Pride
march on 22 May after the police announced that they would not be able to protect
the participants from attacks by counter-demonstrators. The march was reportedly marked
by violence and intimidation due to the failure of authorities to ensure adequate
security. According to the organizers, at least two men who were carrying the rainbow
flag were injured by counter-demonstrators before the rally started.
