Equal treatment: shocking figures in the first annual report on antigypsyism

According to a new report, discrimination, hostility and even violence are part of everyday life for Sinti and Roma in Germany. The new antigypsy reporting and information center MIA recorded 621 incidents nationwide for 2022. These include 343 cases of discrimination and 245 cases of “verbal stereotyping”, but also 11 cases of threats, 17 attacks and 1 case of “extreme violence”.

This is a case in Saarland that was also recorded as an anti-Gypsy crime in the statistics for politically motivated crime, according to the published first MIA annual report: A group of people were first insulted in anti-Gypsy ways by two cars driving past and then with them targeted with a compressed air weapon. Several people were injured.

According to the authors, the MIA report shows a few acts that are also reported in the police statistics, including other cases of violence as well as insults and incitement to hatred. Essentially, the report refers to reports to regional offices set up specifically for this purpose. Some of the cases are also below the threshold of criminal liability.

The authors find two aspects particularly noteworthy: more than half of the recorded incidents involved discrimination and “around half of the cases of antigypsy discrimination took place at an institutional level.” This refers to state institutions such as the police, youth welfare offices, job centers and local administrations that are responsible for accommodating refugees. Many Roma refugees from Ukraine are particularly affected.

MIA therefore calls for the General Equal Treatment Act not to be limited to private law, but rather to be extended to state bodies and to punish discrimination on this basis.