The Anti-Roma Racist Apartheid Stink of the Sheraton Stockholm Hotel Can't Be Washed Off as "Mistake"

So, this is what happened in my country today:

As the Swedish Government was to launch a long awaited and important white book, documenting and finally publicly acknowledging decade after decade of endemic discrimination and persecution or Roma people in Sweden, one of the main speakers, Diana Nyman, chairman of the Roma council in Gothenburg, and specially invited prominent guest to speak at the ceremony – where also the Queen and the Crown Princess took part, besides the minister of social affairs, Erik Ullenhag – was heading down to the restaurant of the luxury Sheraton Hotel in the very centre of Stockholm, where the government had booked her to stay, to have breakfast.

 This, however, proved to be a challenge, as she...

'...was almost knocked over by a staff member who rushed to bar the Roma expert and speaker from entering the breakfast room. 
"Even after I had showed that I'd paid for breakfast the staff insisted that I stay in the lobby," Nyman told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (DN) on Tuesday. "They got me coffee so I could drink it there instead." '

In Dagens Nyheter, representatives of the Government comments dryly that it will now "revise its business relations" with the hotel, while Diana Nyman declares that she will (of course!) report the hotel for unlawful discrimination.

Quote above is from The Local. And some Swedish renderings are here, here, here, here, here.

Just now, the hotel CEO, Thomas Johansson, finally commented, labeling the incident as an "unfortunate mistake" and then immediately contradicting himself by referring to an ongoing internal investigation, obviously implying that the hotel actually believes that something more than an accident had occurred.

Of course, it's no accident and, of course, it's no mistake!

The hotel staff knew exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it. They were barring a proven guest of the hotel from having breakfast and entering the restaurant only because of her "Roma looks". Based, I suppose, on some hazy notion that "We can't have those people around our fine restaurant guests, now, can we! What will our guests think!?" Keep her happy with a cuppa in the lobby, just to prevent any fuss, before she's on her way and all can return to normal". 

This is without any doubt a crystal clear case of conscious apartheid and blatant racial/ethnic discrimination. Moreover, I hold more than likely that the staff actions are perfectly in line with longstanding practice at the hotel with regard to Roma people, it's just that they never had anyone of them so visibly as a guest before. The equally likely fact that the Sheraton chain somewhere, I'm sure, has some sort of human rights and equal treatment policy doesn't mean zilch in this context. One might add, moreover, that the behaviour of the hotel staff is perfectly in tune with the deeply embedded culture towards Roma people in my country, documented by the White book launched today. So, I would guess, that – in fact – Sheraton is only unlucky here, to have their first visibly Roma guest, the incident would have been extremely likely to occur at any "better" accommodation establishment in town.

So, please, Mr. Sheraton CEO, Thomas Johansson, please stop pretending what only makes you look ridiculous. Admit that your hotel – as probably most others in this country – has a cultural and institutional ethnic/racial discrimination problem, giving rise to apartheid behaviour towards guest or possible guests based on "racial profiling" from your staff. Admit it and deal with it!

In the meantime, I find the reaction of the Government most apt, and if the Royal court does any business with Sheraton, it would be very logical for them to turn their affairs elsewhere as well. Not to speak of the Nobel Foundation, which often uses Sheraton to put up laureates and their families. Just as a bit of a motivator for real change, I mean – you do believe in financial incentives, don't you?

And all of you others, if you happen to visit Stockholm in the future, here's how the Sheraton Stockholm hotel looks like again. Just in case you want to follow these fine examples when making your free choice on the market of where not to hole up, I mean:

South Sweden Police's Registry of Roma is Illegal on Multiple Counts – and More Criticism May Well Be Coming!

So a while back I posted an admittedly rather annoyed and highly sarcastic piece regarding the revelations of a registry of more than 4 500 people, mostly of roma origin or related to roma people, some of them since long dead and over 1 000 of them small children, and the feeble and completely confused attempts of responsible police officials to deny any wrongdoing, responsibility or simply sweep the whole thing under the carpet. After that it has been revealed that the registry has contained a large number of people with no suspiscion of or  connection whatsoever to criminal activities and completely respectable lives, jobs social situation etc. – they just "happen" to be roma or having roma relations.

 As I reported about then, a criminal investigation of possible illegal actions in the setup, management and use of the registry was immediately opened by a criminal prosecuter and two police officers have since then been notified of suspiscions of crimes in this respect so far. Parallel investigations were opened by the the Commission on Security and Integrity Protection (SIN) and the Swedish Discrimination Ombudsman (DO). The former authority "supervises the use by crime-fighting agencies of secret surveillance and qualified assumed identities and associated activities" and today delivered its report on what has become known as the "roma registry". Reports in the press can be found (1st one in English) here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

The verdict is that the registry is severly misconceived from the outset, handled sloppily and with lack of discipline and illegal on multiple counts. This, it should be noted, is an administrative legal verdict and does not – however severe its administrative legal implications – by itself imply criminal wrongdoing of any person, but it's hardly good news for the already notified officers mentioned or others formally responsible or users of the registry in South or other parts of Sweden that may be under the criminal prosecuter's scrutiny. What the outcome of this criminal legal process will be remains to be seen.

Likewise, the SIN verdict does not settle the issue of whether or not the setup and running and use of the "roma registry" amounts to illegal discrimination (on ethnic grounds). This is the topic of the DO investigation, which is still ongoing. SIN does note in its report that, apparently, ethnicity has not been the only ground of inclusion of people into the registry – however, this does not settle the illegal discrimination issue, since it seems that people have been included (almost) only if they have either roma origins or relations to people of such origins. That is, while more or less well-founded suspiscion of crime or feared future criminal activity has indeed been a reason for inclusion, a great many people falling into that category have not been included and, seemingly, this is due primarily to their lack of roma origins or connections. It remains to be seen how the DO will assess this delicate situation.
 

Why Southern Sweden's Police Should Immediately Create a Registry of Police Officers and their Families

So here's the not so very tasty news from my country today, broken by our largest daily, Dagens Nyheter: The police force of southern Sweden has been running a registry, based on biological/genetic/familial/genealogical principles worthy of any classic nazi or racial biologist, of roma or "traveller" people, comprising of over 4000 persons, among which are 1000 plus children – and also some long deceased ancestors. Read English reports here, here and here (some other Swedish reports are here, here, here, here). One of the family-tree structures look like this (click it for more examples):

The police of south Sweden has made a number of increasingly pathetic attempts to dodge this obviously undodgeable shitstorm, ranging from first denying the existence of any registry, then admitting that but claiming that it is not organised by any "ethnic" principles (the title of the registry is "traveler abouts" – duh!), then possibly sensing this is not going to go away, starting to shift the blame to the classic sort of patsy: the lone, slightly crazed police officer acting "on his own" and excessing a little bit in his/her otherwise admirarable sense of duty. This nice composition of headlines from today sums up how totally feeble and cowardly this whole thing is being handled by those responsible locally:

 Right. And at the same time the registry, for legally it is one, is reported to have been in wide use, not only in the south, but also in my own quarters of Western Sweden, for instance. Ok, so maybe not a lone gunman after all....

By now the national chief of police, Bengt Svensson, reacted strongly and critically, to say the least, and ordered all regional chiefs to probe if anything similar is going on anywhere else (you hear those shredders working all through the nights, and all those hard-drives being dismounted and crushed, folks?) and, in consequence, the police has reported itself to.... the police and the relevant prosecutor has already said that an investigation will be opened regarding possible crimes against the law on registration of personal information (PUL, which is pretty strict), and possibly other laws as well. A bit late, but still, our minister of Justice, Beatrice Ask – otherwise famous for condoning police racial profiling, or at least pooh-poohing reports about it – also has made a statement. Should that fail, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, Nils Muznieks, has already stated his view that the whole thing is in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (since Sweden is an EU member state, also a part of my country's constitution), so that would take the case to a probable loss in the European Court of said human rights, which would then force a legal change, if necessary. In parallel, also today, UN's committee against racial discrimination is once again mounting criticism against Sweden, among other things for its lack of action against discrimination and stigmatisation of people of roma origin.

This leads into the funny bit, which motivates this post:

It is namely the last line of defense (offered by deputy chief, Petra Stenkula, and picked up by this shady excuse for a legal commentator, to mention one of a bunch – nice company you keep, deaputy chief!), apparently, of the south Sweden police, that the registry (which is not a registry, but a "list") of roma or travelers (which is not that but a list of "traveler abouts") is (at least initially), in fact a completely legitimate part of a police investigation of some crime connected to a family feud some years back – let alone, it might have gone a bit astray over the years. Right, that's why they need those long deceased people born in the 1800's and the two year olds in there - stupid me, I should have known!

But wait a bit, let's not be too harsh!! Let's in fact accept this explanation - it is actually quite apt by the police to set up registries of this sort, if only it pertains to an ongoing criminal investigation. Let's now chew really well on exactly that:

As we saw, there's a new criminal investigation that has just been opened! Apparently it's about police officers in south Sweden creating and using possibly illegal and unlawfully racist registries of people. So, let's accept the just given explanation and the principle that it implies and act really thoroughly on that: Let's have that registry of all those police officers in south Sweden who are potentially implicated for setting up or using (the Swedish law relevant here may actually ban mere use) the registry – quite possibly that'll be all of them. And be very sure to have deputy chief Stenkula's name as the very first entry, as the feeble attempt at whitewashing that she has offered obviously makes her a prime suspect. And while you're at it, let's put all their family members in there too - including small children of about two and up and a few long dead ones as well, just for good measure. 

You just act on your own fine principles and do just that! Savor how good it feels! Do it tomorrow, do it now, do it yesterday and enjoy!

BBC newspeak on mob hate crimes against Roma in France

So, here's a short note on a piece of news reporting that upset me quite a bit yesterday night. Partly this is due to the nature of the events described, bearing evidence of the French authorities' increased acceptance of lawless harassment against Roma people, thus setting aside basic obligations to tend to human rights, rule of law and legal security. But even more so, the way in which these events are described upset me. Especially considering the source being not the press office of the Front Nationale or the British National Party, but actually the BBC.

Basically, what is reported is that of a local French mob running amok – inspired by the usual anecdotal rumours and lose slander figuring in cases like these since the witch-hunts of the 17th century – taking the law into their own hands and forcing (one supposes by threats of violence and/or actual physical force, how else does one force?) a group of homeless Romas (sometimes referred to as Gypsies or Travellers) to flee a camp set up on a wasteland close to a Marseille housing estate. In the process, parts of said camp were set on fire and anonymous members of the mob in so many words say that they were passively or indirectly inspired to the attack by local police authorities. Said authorities in turn seem to actively turning a blind eye to the incident claiming that they were "not able to report any crime".

This, the usually impeccably to the point and correct BBC chooses to describe as "vigilantes" with "no reports of violence" "evicting". Yep, vigilantes – just like Batman or any other righteous crime fighter who steps in when the high and mighty lost their ability to uphold the law. Yep, non-violent – just like that example of peaceful popular protest known as Kristallnacht that also had suspected arson and unlawful coercion and threat on the menu, besides general mayhem And the best of all: evicting, just like any landlord would do had the tenants not behaved themselves – all proper and according to due procedure. Yep, nothing to add to the local police's obviously completely ridiculous stated inability to report any crime. If this is not the worst case of racist newspeak I have encountered in mainstream media for a long time I don't know what is.

Shame on you, BBC!