[Romania] Council of Europe concerned at widespread hate speech in Romania

The Council of Europe's Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) is concerned about the rising racism and hate speech cases, discrimination against Roma and LGBT communities, as well as the insufficient criminal justice response in Romania despite some actions taken by the authorities in the past five years. The ECRI's latest report on Romania acknowledged the Eastern European country's specific criminal laws to prevent and combat anti-Semitism as well as "the adoption by the General Prosecutor's office of a strategy to enhance the effectiveness of criminal investigations into allegations of ill-treatment by law enforcement officials."

Moreover, the report notes that there have been improvements in the field of education, more Roma children have benefited from scholarships, and the number of schools drop-outs in the community have plummeted. At the same time, school segregation has been officially forbidden, the ECRI noted. Considering another vulnerable group, Romania has also granted refugees the right to work in the country, and has taken measures so that they can access social protection, including healthcare, education and housing.

However, the ECRI is dissatisfied with the EU member state's inability to tackle intolerant public discourse and hate speech, particularly on the Internet. The groups that are the most vulnerable to discrimination in Romania are the Roma, LGBT, and Hungarian and Jewish Communities. Furthermore, the ECRI draws attention to the spreading of homophobic and transphobic attitudes across Romanian society.

The discriminatory racial profiling by police, inadequate housing, high rates of unemployment and an inefficient National Strategy for the Inclusion of Romanian Citizens Belonging to the Roma Minority due to a lack of funding continues to be the most critical issues the Roma community faces in Romania.

Another concern underlined in the report deals with the lack of official data on the number of hate-motivated violent acts and hate speech due to an inadequate systematic collection and the underreporting of these types of offences. As stated by the ERCI report and noted by Emerging Europe, "criminal law action is almost never taken against these crimes, and provisions on racist motivation as an aggravating circumstance are rarely applied."