Romania

   Estimated Gypsy population: 1,000,000. According to the 2002 census, the Roma population numbered some 500,000. The majority belong to Vlah clans, but there are also Ursari and Muslims. Gypsies may have arrived with the invading Tartars in the 13th century. By the end of the next century, they were already treated as slaves. They had even fewer rights than the native serfs, as families could be split up and the members sold or given away as gifts. The first recorded transfer of Romany slaves took place in 1385. The Gypsies may have been brought to Romania as slaves by the Tartars and remained in the country with this status when the Tartars were driven out. Alternatively they may have been forced to sell themselves into slavery through debt. Like the slaves in the United States, they had no rights and could be beaten by their masters. The slaves included both farm workers and craftspeople.

   A ruler of the Wallachia region of Romania, Vlad IV (Dracula), is said to have brought back 11,000-12,000 Gypsies to his capital to be tortured or executed for his entertainment.

   The Gypsy slaves have a place in Romanian literature. Bogdan Hasdeu wrote the play Razvan si Vidra [Razvan and Vidra], in which he tells the true story of a slave (Stefan Razvan) who was liberated in the 16th century and became a local leader in Moldavia. Istoria unui galban [The Story of a Gold Coin] was written by Vasile Alec-sandri in the 19th century. Its heroine is Zamfria, who is bought by a cruel owner. A Gypsy kills him and saves her, but he is executed while Zamfria is gripped by insanity. In 1878 Barbu Constantinescu made the first countrywide collection of Romani folklore.

   In Transylvania, slavery was not widespread. However, in Moldavia it was not abolished until 1855 and in Wallachia (Muntenia) one year later. Even then, liberty did not mean equality. A trickle of emigration then became a flood, and hundreds, if not thousands, of liberated slaves left Romania for other countries. Many Gypsies of the Vlah clans went as far as Australia and the Americas.

   A census in 1930, which counted only sedentary Gypsies, recorded 262,000, but this figure was recognized as too low. In the period between the world wars, Gypsies began to organize themselves and demand social equality. In 1933 the journal Glasul Romilor (Voice of the Romanies) appeared, continuing until 1939. It was followed by other newspapers, such as Neamul Tiganesc (Gypsy Nation), and associations were set up in different parts of the country. In 1926 the first local Gypsy organization was founded in Calbor, and in 1933 the Asociatia Generala a Tiganilor din Romania (General Association of Gypsies in Romania) was formed. Gheorghe Niculescu and Popp Serboianu were among the leaders at this time. In 1934 the General Association arranged an international meeting, the Bucharest Conference, although there were few, if any, foreign participants. A number of resolutions were passed on education, employment, and civil rights, but little was done to put these into practice.

   At the same time, as fascist ideas spread through the country, racist commentators such as Ioan Facaoru put forward a policy of preventing contact between the Gypsy and Romanian peoples to avoid contaminating Romanian blood. This meant in theory that the nomadic clans that did not intermarry with Romanians should be allowed to continue their traditional life.

   Romania allied itself with Germany during World War II. It began a policy of deporting Gypsies to land in the east captured from the Soviet Union. During 1942, the government removed 25,000 Romanies to this land, known as Transnistria, where some 19,000 died.

   When the Communists came to power after the war, the lot of the Gypsies changed again. The nomads were forced to settle down and abandon the nomadic life. The sedentary Gypsies found themselves placed in high-rise flats in the minitowns created later by Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu's policy of destroying villages and resettling the population. At an official level, the Romanies did not even exist during this period. There were no books about them and, in contrast to, say, Bulgaria, Romany musicians were not advertised as such even for the tourist trade. Only one scholar, Olga Nagy, was able to publish work on Romany culture. For an idea of the treasures that were being lost through neglect, consider the fact that she alone produced eight volumes of folktales, all gleaned from Romanies.

   During the Communist period, Gypsies were given jobs on state farms and in state factories. Prejudice against Gypsies continued, however. It was alleged that often police would raid their houses and steal their gold jewelry, claiming that it was the result of black market dealings. Visits from Romany leaders from the West were not made easy by the law that imposed a heavy fine on anyone allowing a nonmember of the household to stay in their accommodation after darkness. Leaving Romania was also difficult and costly. Only two Romanian Gypsies were able to attend the third World Romany Congress. Pentecostal missionaries worked underground, and in 1979 St. John's Gospel was translated into Romani and printed in the Netherlands by Open Doors for smuggling into Romania. During this period, loan Cioaba was an intermediary between his people and the government.

   The census of 1979 counted 225,000 Gypsies (less than had been recorded in 1930) because many registered themselves as Romanian or Hungarian.

   The fall of Communism in 1989 brought both good and bad results for the Gypsies. In the first place, they were free again to form associations and publish magazines. On the other hand, the new governments and many Romanians often blamed the Gypsies for the economic difficulties that the change to a free market brought. There were many pogroms in the following years. One of the worst attacks was in Bucharest in 1990 when Prime Minister Petre Roman brought in miners to help him to retain power. After beating up opposition students and others in the center of Bucharest, the miners, together with secret police, then attacked the Gypsy quarter, causing much damage and many injuries.

   In March 1993 a report in a Bucharest newspaper concerned the Ion Antonescu Command, a vigilante organization with a national network and considerable financial capital whose proclaimed aim was to "kill Gypsies who commit crimes against society." A representative of the group stated that its members were not concerned about European public opinion and that the Gypsies were not a minority but a "curse on the Romanian nation." Romanies formed paramilitary self-defense groups in response to the authorities' failure to protect them.

   Since 1990, some 50 villages in Romania have experienced ethnic conflict wherein Romanians and/or Hungarians have come together to burn Gypsies out of their homes. More than 300 houses belonging to Romanies have been burned down and 10 persons killed by mobs since, and no one has yet been convicted of arson or murder. In January 1995, houses were set on fire in Bacu and Botosani. In the same year, there were heavy-handed police raids in Akos Bontida, Sectorul Agricol Ilfov, and Tandarei. In the town of Curtea de Arges, 21 houses were burned down in June 1996. The majority of those who lost their homes have been unable to return to them. Many now live in very poor circumstances as "illegal residents" in other towns.

   There are many examples of Roma being forced to leave their places of residence: In May 2002, city hall representatives pulled down the tents of 20 families who had been living in the Vacaresti Lake area of Bucharest, after the families failed to obey a notice to leave. In July of the same year, Roma were forcibly removed from public land in Sector 6 of the city of Bucharest and made to return to their counties of origin. In 2003, the same thing happened to Roma living on the outskirts of Bucharest's Militari district.

   In 1997 four persons were finally arrested for trial in connection with events in 1993 in Hadareni where three Romany men had been killed. These were the first arrests of anyone for this series of attacks. The four who were convicted were released in 2000, after serving short sentences. In 2005 the Romanian government reached a settlement with the 18 surviving victims of the pogrom. The attacks in Hadareni had led to a second exodus, and Romanian Gypsies can now be found in Poland as well as many western European countries, where they have been usually tolerated for a short time and then sent back to their birthplace.

   An action initiated on 5 December 2002 by 52 policemen from the county of Bacau and Neamt in the Orbic region on the outskirts of Buhusi, intended to locate several wanted criminals, ended in bloodshed. One of those wanted by the police for theft and his father were shot dead by the police forces. Many Roma were beaten, including a 72-year-old woman. The police concerned in Buhusi were later rewarded for their courage in entering the Romany community.

   Instances of police brutality toward Roma continue in the 21st century with numerous reports of police torture and mistreatment that fail to result in due punishment of the officers concerned. In June 2002, 18-year-old Nelu Balasoiu died in detention in Jilava Prison near Bucharest. Witnesses claimed he was beaten every day by the police during his three months in prison. In June 2003, Mihai Dumitru was also the victim of a police officer in civilian clothes who was involved in a raid in Tulcea. Dumitru suffered a severe beating and was subsequently hospitalized. Although the Ministry of Administration and Interior acknowledged the officer's guilt, his punishment had not been determined by the year's end and although the case had been referred to court for criminal prosecution, it has still not been decided.

   Roma children have been subjected to police brutality: In February 2002, 14-year-old Calin Sterica was beaten in a Galati schoolyard by local police using fists and clubs. They were there to investigate a disturbance in which she was not involved. Calin's mother, who arrived to see what was happening, was fined four million lei ($120) for "disturbance of the public order." The Roma County Bureau subsequently discouraged the mother from filing a complaint.

   It is clear from the above that the police in many towns in all parts of Romania have until recently been themselves persecuting the Roma, not defending them. There are not any reports of police brutality against Roma since those listed above. There have, however, been cases where civil security guards have used excessive violence against Roma.

   The Country Report 2004 for Romania from the European Commission states: "A particular concern is the occasional excessive use of violence by law enforcement officers, including the unlawful use of firearms. Reports of [such] violence have been most common in the case of disadvantaged categories such as Roma."

   On a more positive note, an emergency ordinance passed in January 2002 prohibited discrimination based on a number of factors, including ethnicity, and established the ability to sue on the grounds of discrimination. The National Council for Combating Discrimination, the agency enforcing the ordinance, fined two private companies for denying access to Roma. In January 2006 the National Council for Combating Discrimination ruled that a speech by Vadim Tudor, leader of the extreme right-wing Greater Romania Party, labeling Gypsies as "rapists and thieves" was in breach of the national law against discrimination.

   At the end of November 2003, the ruling Social Democratic Party signed an agreement of cooperation with the Roma Party. It called for the continued monitoring of the Roma situation, the hiring of Roma to work in state institutions, and programs to educate the public about racism and discrimination. A partnership protocol that sets out cooperative measures to ensure that Roma have access to health care continued during the year.

   In June 2003, the Department for Interethnic Relations and the National Office for Roma were placed under the General Secretariat of the government. The government reported that 60 percent of the goals of the 2001 National Strategy for the Improvement of the Situation of Roma had been achieved. Under this strategy, some 400 Roma experts and counselors were appointed in ministries, prefect's offices, and some mayoral offices. Ministerial Committees for Roma were subordinated to a joint committee to monitor the implementation of the strategy, and joint working groups at the local level have been set up. Roma nongovernmental organizations have asserted that, with the exception of the establishment of bodies to implement the strategy, there were few practical achievements. In April 2004 the government stated that it would desegregate education and ensure equality of access to Roma children.

   The situation today is that, while in some parts of Romania Gypsies live in fear of attack by their neighbors and the police, elsewhere the community has been able to develop associations and magazines. The Bible is being translated and published legally, and the Romani language is taught in several schools and colleges. There was a move to replace the pejorative term Tigan by the word Rom, but in 1995 the government changed it back officially to Tigan on the grounds that there was confusion with the word Roman (a Romanian). Some schools continue to segregate children, but the situation is being addressed. In 2005 the government agreed to a detailed European Union-inspired education project that includes integrating Roma children into the main school system.

   Romany organizations currently operating include the Ethnic Federation of Roma, the Young Generation of Roma, the United Association of Roma, the Aven Amentza Foundation, and Rromani CRISS. The last is a national body linking Gypsy associations. One Gypsy is in the upper house of Parliament. In 2003 there were two Romany members of the lower house (Chamber of Deputies). The former Romany minority representative joined the PSD party and sat in the Chamber, while the constitution and electoral legislation then allowed an extra seat for the Roma.

   After being discouraged under Ceausescu, Romany musicians are now active. Aside from the band Taraf de Haidouks, Taraf din Ba-iai and Mahala Rai Banda are other popular groups. There are also many solo artists, such as the fiddlers Romica Puceanu, Faramita Lambru, and Alexandru Titrus, the last of whom performed at the third World Romany Congress.