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Romany families deported: protests criminalised

01 January 1991

Romany families deported: protests criminalised
artdoc November=1995

Thursday, 8th June - 45 Romany families, a total of around 200
people, were taken from their homes in the German state of
North-Rhein-Westfalia and deported to Macedonia. One family from
the town of Erkelenz, resident in Germany for the last seven
years, were woken at dawn by uniformed police and taken
handcuffed to Dusseldorf airport, where they were put on a
Lufthansa flight to Skopje. The authorities responsible later
commented that they had been "too late" in noticing that the
deported family was in fact stateless and that the forcible
deportation to Macedonia was actually illegal. A group of
supporters of the deported Romany people managed to stage a
protest on 14th June in front of the Erkelenz town hall, in spite
of an initial ban by the police. However, organizers now face the
possibility of a legal action brought by the State Prosecutor on
the grounds that the motto of the demonstration "Gassed yesterday
- deported today" could represent an insult to the state.

Berlin Antiracist Initiative, June 1995 Update