The Rom e.V. society in Cologne has released the following declaration for the press (for the original German text see the homepage: http://www.romev.de ).
Following the press release you will find an appeal to write a letter of concern, which should be directed to the prime minister of Northrhine-Westphalia province.
Special Task Force of the Cologne Police Undresses Roma Children and Photographs their Underwear
The police must prosecute criminals regardless of religion, colour, sex and social rank. The Roma minority is no exception. There is no doubt that underage children who regularly commit pick-pocketing pose a difficult problem for the police.
Of the approximately 2000 children from Roma refugee families in Cologne, about 80 to 100 are known to police. Since 1987, the Cologne police have been confronted with the problem of pick-pocketing by this group. Efforts to repress it have not succeeded; on the contrary, the number of incidents is rising.
Primitive, populist slogans in use by all parties and citizens put pressure on the police. The media and the police describe the situation in threatening terms, as though the city were in the grip of gangs of thieving children, lead by international gangsters. This despite the fact that a Special Task Force wrote, in an article published in the magazine Der Kriminalist, ³There are no structures of organized crime in this suspect group.²
Even in the cases where parents are involved, they do not threaten the children with punishment for lack of success. For years, Rom e.V. has tried to tell the Cologne police that parents are not putting psychological or physical pressure on the children.
Though it is obvious that the children need support, since their parents are, for various reasons, unable to fulfil their duties, the Cologne police only showed contempt in the way they conducted investigations following recent arrests.
The arrested children, all below the age of prosecution, were brought to police stations, ID'ed and x-rayed to determine their age, undressed, photographed, and exposed to having their transpiration examined for smell, and their underwear examined for dirt
and photographed. Girls were forced to lower their slips down to their knees to facilitate the photographing of the inner side of their slips from above. It is especially unusual that this was done to girls in their puberty.
These abusive measures were undertaken without parents being informed or consenting. The children were not given legal advice about their right to refuse such measures, which may serve to incriminate their closest relatives.
Have any other children in Germany been exposed to such abuse of human dignity?
The Cologne police mistreated the children in this way in order to start legal proceedings against the parents, with the aim of removing the children from their parents. What is not taken into consideration is the situation in the refugee camps, where children and parents suffer from malnutrition, over-crowding, bad hygienic conditions, and inadequate care for post-conflict trauma. For these refugees, family unity is the last thing remaining in a world that has rejected them.
For the Cologne police, the method is effective: families threatened with separation have left Cologne. But Rom e.V. has shown that they later returned, presenting themselves under different names, just like the families who were deported.
They return, unable to find a better situation.
For 15 years, the Cologne police have tried to solve the case of the pick-pocketing kids without acknowledging that pure repression does not work. But in other places it has been realised that inspiring confidence is one of the most important factors in successful work with these families and children.
No one is better suited to create such confidence than people from the same minority, who speak their language, who know their suffering and their way of life. If such an effort were accompanied by an improvement in their living conditions, another way of life would be possible for many of these children.
Rom e.V. will inform Amnesty International and other national and international human rights organisations about the methods used by the Cologne police!
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Letter from Rom e.V. to national and international human rights¹ organisations
Human rights of Roma children violated during police investigation
Dear supporters of human rights,
We are writing to alert you to a violation of human rights by the police of Cologne, Germany, during an investigation into allegations of pick-pocketing by Roma children, all below the age for criminal prosecution.
As the enclosed press release and copies of documents from police files indicate, the Roma children, all below 14 years old and the majority girls, were arrested. At the police station, they were required to remove their clothes and appear naked. Parts of their bodies and their underwear were photographed to document ³dirt, faeces, urine and vaginal outflow.² Without legal advice concerning the right to refuse to give evidence and without parental consent, these "documents" were collected to serve as legal evidence that the parents were in breach of parental duty towards their children. The children were also interrogated without their parents being informed.
The Cologne police have recommended such methods as exemplary and effective in a journal specializing in criminal prosecution.
We are asking you to take urgent action by writing to the government of North RhineWestfalia (the German state in which Cologne is situated) with the demand that these methods of policing, which show contempt for human dignity, be immediately stopped.
The Cologne police have already provoked the protest of international human rights organizations. In 1995, they arrested 50 Roma women between the ages of 15 and 55 in a refugee home. These women were forced to give a blood sample and have a gynecological examination. This operation was carried out after an abandoned baby was found in a part of Cologne where hundreds of (non-Roma) German families also lived. Though the examinations produced no evidence and only Roma women were examined, the police continued to insist that they had the right to apply special treatment to minority groups.
The Cologne police are again using methods of examining Roma people that they would never use on Germans or other populations. We therefore ask you to inquire whether this incident was linked to discrimination on the basis of race. It is not yet clear whether we are also dealing with cases of child abuse and child pornography.
Please send your statement to the `Ministerpräsidenten von Nordrhein-Westfalen´ (prime minister) and send us a copy.
Ministerpräsident
Herr Per Steinbrück
Staatskanzlei
Stadt Tor 1
D-40190 Düsseldorf
Germany
E-mail: poststelle@stk.nrw.de
The Rom e.V. society in Cologne: http://www.romev.de
Following the press release you will find an appeal to write a letter of concern, which should be directed to the prime minister of Northrhine-Westphalia province.
Special Task Force of the Cologne Police Undresses Roma Children and Photographs their Underwear
The police must prosecute criminals regardless of religion, colour, sex and social rank. The Roma minority is no exception. There is no doubt that underage children who regularly commit pick-pocketing pose a difficult problem for the police.
Of the approximately 2000 children from Roma refugee families in Cologne, about 80 to 100 are known to police. Since 1987, the Cologne police have been confronted with the problem of pick-pocketing by this group. Efforts to repress it have not succeeded; on the contrary, the number of incidents is rising.
Primitive, populist slogans in use by all parties and citizens put pressure on the police. The media and the police describe the situation in threatening terms, as though the city were in the grip of gangs of thieving children, lead by international gangsters. This despite the fact that a Special Task Force wrote, in an article published in the magazine Der Kriminalist, ³There are no structures of organized crime in this suspect group.²
Even in the cases where parents are involved, they do not threaten the children with punishment for lack of success. For years, Rom e.V. has tried to tell the Cologne police that parents are not putting psychological or physical pressure on the children.
Though it is obvious that the children need support, since their parents are, for various reasons, unable to fulfil their duties, the Cologne police only showed contempt in the way they conducted investigations following recent arrests.
The arrested children, all below the age of prosecution, were brought to police stations, ID'ed and x-rayed to determine their age, undressed, photographed, and exposed to having their transpiration examined for smell, and their underwear examined for dirt
and photographed. Girls were forced to lower their slips down to their knees to facilitate the photographing of the inner side of their slips from above. It is especially unusual that this was done to girls in their puberty.
These abusive measures were undertaken without parents being informed or consenting. The children were not given legal advice about their right to refuse such measures, which may serve to incriminate their closest relatives.
Have any other children in Germany been exposed to such abuse of human dignity?
The Cologne police mistreated the children in this way in order to start legal proceedings against the parents, with the aim of removing the children from their parents. What is not taken into consideration is the situation in the refugee camps, where children and parents suffer from malnutrition, over-crowding, bad hygienic conditions, and inadequate care for post-conflict trauma. For these refugees, family unity is the last thing remaining in a world that has rejected them.
For the Cologne police, the method is effective: families threatened with separation have left Cologne. But Rom e.V. has shown that they later returned, presenting themselves under different names, just like the families who were deported.
They return, unable to find a better situation.
For 15 years, the Cologne police have tried to solve the case of the pick-pocketing kids without acknowledging that pure repression does not work. But in other places it has been realised that inspiring confidence is one of the most important factors in successful work with these families and children.
No one is better suited to create such confidence than people from the same minority, who speak their language, who know their suffering and their way of life. If such an effort were accompanied by an improvement in their living conditions, another way of life would be possible for many of these children.
Rom e.V. will inform Amnesty International and other national and international human rights organisations about the methods used by the Cologne police!
********************************************************************************
Letter from Rom e.V. to national and international human rights¹ organisations
Human rights of Roma children violated during police investigation
Dear supporters of human rights,
We are writing to alert you to a violation of human rights by the police of Cologne, Germany, during an investigation into allegations of pick-pocketing by Roma children, all below the age for criminal prosecution.
As the enclosed press release and copies of documents from police files indicate, the Roma children, all below 14 years old and the majority girls, were arrested. At the police station, they were required to remove their clothes and appear naked. Parts of their bodies and their underwear were photographed to document ³dirt, faeces, urine and vaginal outflow.² Without legal advice concerning the right to refuse to give evidence and without parental consent, these "documents" were collected to serve as legal evidence that the parents were in breach of parental duty towards their children. The children were also interrogated without their parents being informed.
The Cologne police have recommended such methods as exemplary and effective in a journal specializing in criminal prosecution.
We are asking you to take urgent action by writing to the government of North RhineWestfalia (the German state in which Cologne is situated) with the demand that these methods of policing, which show contempt for human dignity, be immediately stopped.
The Cologne police have already provoked the protest of international human rights organizations. In 1995, they arrested 50 Roma women between the ages of 15 and 55 in a refugee home. These women were forced to give a blood sample and have a gynecological examination. This operation was carried out after an abandoned baby was found in a part of Cologne where hundreds of (non-Roma) German families also lived. Though the examinations produced no evidence and only Roma women were examined, the police continued to insist that they had the right to apply special treatment to minority groups.
The Cologne police are again using methods of examining Roma people that they would never use on Germans or other populations. We therefore ask you to inquire whether this incident was linked to discrimination on the basis of race. It is not yet clear whether we are also dealing with cases of child abuse and child pornography.
Please send your statement to the `Ministerpräsidenten von Nordrhein-Westfalen´ (prime minister) and send us a copy.
Ministerpräsident
Herr Per Steinbrück
Staatskanzlei
Stadt Tor 1
D-40190 Düsseldorf
Germany
E-mail: poststelle@stk.nrw.de
The Rom e.V. society in Cologne: http://www.romev.de