EUROPEAN RACE BULLETIN - Institute of Race Relations

citizens is almost unheard of and is in drastic violation of internationallaw’. (Roma Rights, Summer 1998)Asylum and immigrationLack of citizenship rights linked toinstitutionalised racismAccording to Linda Grant, writing in the Guardian, since the‘Velvet Revolution’ and the creation of the new Czech Republicstate in 1993 the position of Roma has worsened immeasurablywith institutionalised racism enshrined across the land. Half amillion Roma are believed to live in the Czech Republic. Anestimated seventy per cent of Roma have a criminal record.Eighty per cent of Roma children have been placed in ‘specialprimary schools’ (ie schools for the mentally subnormal) on theadvice of educational psychologists. (Libération 27.8.98,Guardian 25.7.98)Police speak of Albanian exodusAccording to Czech police, hundreds of ethnic Albanians fromKosovo are trying to reach Germany via a human-smugglingpipeline running through the former Czechoslovakia. Thosecaught inside the Czech Republic are being transported torefugee camps in northern Bohemia, close to the German border.(Guardian 9.10.98)DENMARKAsylum and immigrationNew immigration and integration legislationcriticisedThe new immigration and integration law discriminates againstrefugees by offering them 20 per cent less in social security paymentsthan that afforded to Danish citizens. In a letter to the aidorganisation Mellemfolkeligt, UNHCR claims that the integrationlaw contravenes the refugee convention by reducing refugeesocial security payments by 2,000 Danish kroner a month duringthe three-year integration period. When the governmentresponded to UNHCR’s criticisms by arguing that refugeesreceive additional benefits in the form of educational andemployment subsidies which bring total benefits to the samelevel as Danish citizens, the UNHCR modified its claim, arguingthat an objective evaluation would have to wait until thenew legislation was fully operational.Language requirement institutionalisedThe demand that new immigrants and refugees learn Danish isincorporated into the integration law which proposes regularevaluation of the progress made by foreign students in theirefforts to learn Danish. But Aarhus University professor, LiseTogeby, who has compared Danish attitudes to integration tothose of other European citizens, argues that Danes expect toomuch of immigrants and refugees when it comes to adapting toDanish culture. (Jyllands-Posten 14,18.8, 4.10.98)Trades union tie language requirement tounemployment benefitAccording to one of Denmark’s largest trades unions, manyimmigrants on unemployment benefit are so bad at speakingDanish that they cannot hold down a job. SiD chairman, PoulErik Skov Christensen wants all unemployed immigrants totake a course in the Danish language ending with a formalexamination. It seems that around 30 per cent of those whoreceive money from the SiD’s unemployment fund, which functionsas an insurance scheme against unemployment, are immigrants.Those who do not obtain money from unemploymentfunds must resort to social security instead. (Jyllands Posten 9.6,1, 27.8.98)Uncooperative asylum detainees punished withdiet of bread and waterAsylum-seekers who refuse to give information on their identityto the immigration board are being placed on a ‘bread andwater cure’. Under a law of 1 July, the police were instructed toreport to the Immigration Board every time an undocumentedasylum-seeker withholds information as to their identity or howthey travelled to Denmark. By way of punishment for silence,asylum-seekers lose their right to pocket money for clothes andfood. Instead, they are given a supply of groceries, flour andfrozen food once a fortnight.So far, information on around 1,100 refugees has beenpassed on to the Immigration Board in this way. TheImmigration Board now maintains that it is only asking thepolice to report those who make a clear effort to avoid providingthe necessary information. It claims that on a number ofoccasions – largely out of consideration for children – it haschosen not to implement the bread and water cure. (Jyllands-Posten 28.10.98)Provision made at Sandholm refugee camp forchildrenThe government is considering changing the practice wherebywomen immigration detainees are separated from small children.A special wing for mothers and pre-school children hasbeen opened in a closed part of the Sandholm refugee camp,where all asylum-seekers are installed on first enteringDenmark. During the day the children will attend a nurseryschool outside the camp. (Jyllands-Posten 22.6.98)Racism and fascismSurge in popularity for Danish Peoples PartyAn opinion poll suggests that if a general election were heldnow, the anti-immigrant Danish Peoples Party would emerge asthe second biggest right-wing force in parliament, gaining onemore seat than the Conservatives which are currently riven withinternal disputes. DPP leader Pia Kjaersgaard welcomed thenews. ‘Our aim is to appeal to the conservative electors who feelneglected by the Conservative People’s Party’, she said. ‘Theparty has forgotten the old virtues – God, King and theFatherland – and that is something we have benefited from.’(Jyllands-Posten 18.10.98)No ban on neo-nazi demonstrationThe leader of the Danish National Socialist Movement, Jonni7IRR EUROPEAN RACE BULLETIN • NO 29 • MARCH 1999