The Polish Roma Association is to file a law suit with prosecutors after a mob in the town of Limanowa, southern Poland, tried to break into an apartment and lynch members of a Roma family.

 

The attack came after one of the mob claimed Roma had been acting aggressively towards residents and allegedly allowed a dog to attack a pregnant woman.

 

Local press reported that last Friday night, a group of residents of a housing estate in Limanowa, 80 km south of Krakow, tried to break into an apartment inhabited by a Roma family as an act of retribution for the dog attack.

 

“We are going to prosecutors to file following a possible lynching attempt,” Roman Kwiatkowski, head of the Polish Roma Association told the Polish Press Agency (PAP), Tuesday, underlining that during the attack, locals used violence against the Roma family specifically due to their ethnicity.

 

The Regional Prosecution in Krakow has been informed of the events, and may press for prison sentences of between three months and five years for incitement of hatred towards an ethnic minority.

 

The move comes after the Roma minority wanted the case to be handled by a court other than the District Prosecution in Limanowa.

 

 

 

“No Roma problem in Limanowa”

 

Mayor of Limanowa, Marek Czeczotka has stated that this is a one-off occurrence.

 

“There is no problem between the Roma and Polish population in Limanowa,” he claimed, informing that “the Roma live in harmony with their neighbours; there is one dysfunctional family, however, and that has sparked neighbours’ anger.”

 

Elzbieta Mirga-Wojtowicz, head of the Malopolska Province Office for National and Ethnic Minorities, and herself half-Roma, has told thenews.pl that it is true that there is usually little tension between the Roma minority and their neighbours, yet there was “a similar situation around 6 months ago with the same family in the same housing estate.”

 

“You have to understand that this family has problems just like any other. The fact that they are Roma makes this situation stand out,” Mirga-Wojtowicz continued, adding that “there are common problems with dysfunctional families, whether they are Roma or non-Roma, it makes no difference.”

 

On Tuesday, municipal authorities in Limanowa decided to install CCTV cameras in the housing estate where the incident took place in order to monitor the situation, with a further meeting planned today, Wednesday, between residents and the local police with the intention of filing a report on the dog attack and the clash which happened as a result.

 

Roma family to move out?

 

Limanowa mayor Marek Czeczotka announced that he is to present plans to the Town Council “to buy land where a [temporary home] will be set up to house the Roma family, which has agreed to such a solution.”

 

The temporary home will be similar to the ones used to house flood victims, and will be placed in an area where further conflicts are most unlikely to happen. It will not, however, be placed in the vicinity of other Roma families living in the area.

 

“The [other Roma families] have disagreed that the family be moved near them, as the family creates a bad image for the whole [Roma] society,” Czeczotka explains.

 

“This is not an ethnic problem,” Head of Minorities, Elzbieta Mirga-Wojtowicz told thenews.pl. “If such an occurrence took place with a Polish family then journalists would not be interested at all.”

 

Head of the Polish Roma Association, Roman Kwiatkowski has criticised the move to house the family in a container, worrying that the family will be more vulnerable to attacks as a result: “just wait until they come and burn the place down,” Kwiatkowski told PAP.

  

Down-and-out

 

The family numbers 11 members, none of whom are in employment and who draw social benefits of various kinds.

 

According to Limanowa authorites, the family receives around 3,000 zloty (750 euro) per month.

 

However, Polska – Gazeta Krakowska, a regional newspaper, informs that the family is in arrears as to rent payments, and has had continuing problems with neighbours, who have demanded that the family be evicted from the estate.

 

“We just want peace and quiet,” one of the family members told the newspaper, defending the family by adding that “the dog did not attack that woman, it just went up to sniff her out and she became scared.”

 

Roma numbers in Poland

 

The National Census from 2002 records 12,731 Polish citizens declaring Roma ethnicity, with most of them living in the southern Malopolska province.

 

There are four ethnic sub-groups of the Roma population in Poland: the Polska Roma, Bergitka Roma, as well as the Kalderash and Lovari groups.

 

The greatest number of Roma live in the Bukowina Tatrzanska district in the Tatra highlands, with a large proportion of the minority living in industrial areas in Upper and Lower Silesia, as well as in Krakow’s district of Nowa Huta, where the Roma were forced to move in the 1950s during the industrialisation of Poland after World War II. (jb/pg)

 

More information on the Roma minority in the Malopolska region can be found here.

 

Thenews.pl |