GENEVA, (Reuters) – A United Nations human rights body rebuked France yesterday for its crackdown on Roma and urged the government to try to integrate members of the EU’s biggest ethnic minority as part of a Europe-wide solution.
The 18 independent experts voiced concern that some of the hundreds of Roma flown to Romania in recent weeks under what France calls a voluntary repatriation programme had not been fully informed of their rights or had not freely consented to returning to their homeland.
“We understand that a state has a right and a responsibility to deal with security issues and issues of illegal immigration. But our view is when you are doing so, it should not be on a collective basis, you should not be targeting a group as a whole,” said Pierre-Richard Prosper, vice-chairman of the U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
“There is an appearance of discrimination,” Prosper, an American, told a news briefing.
Patrick Thornberry, a British committee member, said: “The problem is a collective approach based on ethnicity.”
CERD’s conclusions sparked a swift rebuttal by the French foreign ministry which said the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy was “scrupulously respecting” European Union laws and examining cases one by one.
