ROMA PROBLEMS AROUND GREECE

FEBRUARY 1998

Violations of human rights in Ano Liosia

The Roma Mr.Loukas Christakis, a citizen of Ano Liosia (north-western area of Athens), three years ago, bought a plot of land in the Agio Georgiou area in Ano Liosia.

He applied to get a permit to build a house. The surveyor Mr. Antoniou, the head of town planning Mr. Karalis and the head topographer Mr. Raftopoulos, signed that the plot of land belonging to Louka Christakis can be built on. An assurance of ownership issued by the town council is a necessary precondition for the above construction permit.

The Mayor Mr. Nikos Papadimas and the head of Technical Services of the council, Mr. Koutsamanis, refused to issue this assurance.

The owner’s lawyer went to the District Attorney of the First Court in Athens and made a deposition on the matter. The District Attorney Mr. Sofocles Logothetis, gave a written order to the mayor and to the head of the council’s Technical Services to issue toe assurance of ownership. Since 18/12/97 this order from the District Attorney has not been carried out.

The application for assurance of ownership had been made since 23/6/97, with the protocol number 9917. The Mayor Mr. N. Papadimas, is not disciplined even by District Attorney’s orders.

The Greek Helsinki-Monitor (GHM) presented the facts to the deputy of Synaspismos Ms Nitsa Loule, who tabled a question in the Parliament on 16/2/98, addressed to the Minister for the Interior, Public Justice and Decentralization.

The case of Athanassios Tsakiris from Ano Liosia

In October 1993, The Council Board of Ano Liosia (northwestern area of Athens) seized the house belonging to the Roma Mr. A. Tsakiri, father of eight children, which was entirely legal covering an area of 190 square meters, and granted it to a neighboring monastery.

On 31 December 1992, Mr. Tsakiris had applied for a construction permit. On 21 September 1993, almost one year later, the Council Board took the decision to expropriate his land. This land was described as a place for public use, since it was regarded as extension of the surrounding area of a chapel. Mr. A. Tsakiris made an objection which was dismissed, and all his efforts came to nothing. To stop him taking any other action, they promised that they would give him another piece of land, but that never happened. Since then, Mr. A. Tsakiris lives in a nylon shack in the Agio Georgiou area in Ano Liosia, on a stranger’s land, along with his 8 children. Now he is in hospital for an open heart operation (it is the second operation he has had), and his relatives are convinced that his situation has been aggravated by his unhappiness about the house he lost.

GHM has also presented this matter to Ms Loule to table in Parliament.

The Roma School at Sofades

On Monday 16 February we had a conversation with Mr. Sotiris Demetrakopoulos, the head of the 12-place Roma council school in the large village of Sofada (it belongs to the Prefect of Karditsa in Thessalia), to inform us when the meals would start at the school. There has been some attempt to provide meals at the school in order to attract the Roma children, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the organization «The Child’s Smile» and the mayor of the city.

Mr. Demetrakopoulos told us that the problem is being solved and that the sponsorship coming from the Ministry of Welfare has been ensured (he thinks that money will also be given by the Ministry of Labor). He believes that it will probably start soon, even in a week, and that it will continue up to the end of the school year and begin again normally with the beginning of the new school year.

The 4^th Primary school in Sofades was founded in 1985 with three teaching posts to deal with the needs of about 400 Roma pupils. The first «school» building was an old rented house of 80 square meters, which did not meet even the basic standards of hygiene, and, naturally, did not satisfy the educational needs of the school, since there was a complete lack of equipment. «It was staggering», Mr. Demetrakopoulos told us, «like a broken down boat: One minute over here, the next minute over there, without having the support of any responsible body (Ministry, local administration etc.), while the teachers were left to their own devices and they used to run the school based on their own inspiration and strength».

Since the records of the 5-year period 1985-1990 have been destroyed, it is estimated that during each school year there were between 30 -60 students. When, in 1989, Mr. Demetrakopoulos went to Sofades as a teacher, he found a school in a single-story house of 70 square meters for 400 children. In the school year 1989-1990 a mobile school of 80 square meters was placed in the settlement of Roma, and, for the first time, such a school had 5 teachers, a telephone line, and a flag. Moreover, this was the first time when Roma children took part in a school parade.

Up until 1996 the school was run with only 2, 3 or 4 teachers without any encouraging educational results, by excluding 400 children from education.

According to the Sofades council municipal registrar, children in the kindergarten number about 100 and the children at the Primary school 470, without being able to count the children from other Municipalities who live in the Roma habitation (judged to be about 50). Then a new school was built near the mobile one, and in the school year of 1996-7 it was upgraded to a 6-place school, while the kindergarten to a 2-place school.

At present, in the 1997-1998 school year the school has been upgraded to 12-place with 13 teaching posts and along with the mobile one they are able to host 300 students. In both schools, at present, there are 17 teachers.

As Mr. Demetrakopoulos told us, he had great difficulties in finding room for all the children, but the main worry was how to attract them and keep them at the school. At this moment there are 600 children enrolled, while 300 attend. «The children come hungry to school, and many leave after 10.00, they go to eat and then return. That is why we thought that providing meals would help us to keep them here». Of course, he struggled a lot in order to persuade the state to take care of the Roma children, since it even used to claim that «there are no children.» An example he gave us is that on 28 October 1992 he took the 140 Roma children of the school, barefoot, and with whatever clothes they had, and put them into the parade. In that way, and with different demonstrations, festivals, theaters, choirs, tours, the State discovered that «the children are here - where is the school?»

«Today when the school is well-equipped and organized (it seems that there is nothing similar all over Greece)» , Mr Demetrakopoulos continues, «our aim consists in bringing in all the children. That is why the saying is reversed and addressed now to the Roma: The school is here, where are the children?» Through many struggles, some steps forward have been taken, but they are not enough, as he told us. For example, since there are not enough specially-trained teachers, every week they have one or two hour meetings with all the teachers to discuss the problems. They have asked from the Ministry of Education to give extra points to the teachers as a motive for them to stay at the school.

We should point out that the expenses for the children at the school (e.g., pencils, books etc.) are paid by themselves. Last year, for 500 children, they received Drs100,000 for the whole school year, whereas other schools, whose children are fewer (100) and non Roma, get Drs. 500,000 . This year, with 600 children, they got Drs. 500,000.

Mr. Demetrakopoulos focuses the main problem on the local community. Even though there are institutions for Roma rights or other cultural minorities, the local community does not implement them. There is a lot of racism. He referred us to the president of the Union of Parents and Guardians, who was preparing to organize protests in order to expel the Roma children from the school, but he stopped them. From the moment that there is legislation, he wonders, what does the local community do to implement them, what does every school head, and what do the teachers do? «There are trade unionists who don’t lose any chance at every meeting to attack the state», he tells us. «The problem isn’t just the state. What do they do, those ones who face the problem every day and want to implement the equal rights and the existing legislation?».

In his answer to our question about the attitude of the inhabitants, Mr. Demetrakopoulos told us that the town’s Mayor helps the Roma a lot, and the Prefectural Administration as well. They have asphalted the Roma settlement, they installed water, they made toilets and they connected electricity. Also they have placed 15 rubbish bins and 2 outside the school (the school is near the settlement). In the settlement there are 100 beautiful houses, 100 good shacks and another 100 made of wood and nylon.

In cooperation with the Health Center in the area, they have been vaccinating all the children at the school for the past three years.

On 24 March, the eve of the national festival, the school has undertaken the festival in the town of Karditsa. There the Roma children of the school will parade, and in the evening they will organize the festivities with the other children’s parents, with music etc.

24 February 1998