THE SITUATION OF ROMA IN LATVIA Riga 2003 This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Community and the Society Integration Foundation. The views expressed herein are those of the Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Community and the Society Integration Foundation. © Latvian Centre for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies Alberta Street 13, Riga LV-1010, Latvia Phone: +371 7039290 Fax: +371 7039291 E-mail:
[email protected] © Cover photo: Kaspars Goba, photojournalism research project "Roma in Latvia", Latvian Culturcapital Foundation Prepared SIA PUSE PLUS ISBN 9984-9707-0-1 Preface Anti-Roma racism, just like anti-Semitism, has been recognized as an especially severe problem within the sphere of anti-discrimination in Europe and elsewhere, a problem which should receive priority attention. In Latvia, however, there has until now been no attempt to systematically collect information on the situation of Roma in the country. This could be explained with two basic reasons. First, the semi-official opinion that compared to the huge discrimination problems and open violence that Roma experience regularly in some other East European nations, the Roma in Latvia are relatively better off. Second, for the first decade of regained independence in Latvia focus within the area of minority rights was on the numerically large, Russian-speaking minorities – and as a consequence, the main issues concerned citizenship and language. Using only these criteria, the impression is that all is well with the Roma in Latvia: 92% are Latvian citizens, and 66% freely speak Latvian.