Numerous Pori restaurants denied entry to Finland's Roma minority

The local Roma population resident in Finland's coastal city of Pori are fed up with discrimination that has been going on for years.
      Last weekend, a group of four Roma with two witnesses along for the ride finally decided to obtain proof of discrimination. After all of the restaurants they visited either denied entrance or refused service, they notified the local police of the offences on Monday.
      "We reported the crimes to the police, as this is public discrimination", notes Dimitri Hagert, who is a member of the working-group of local Roma.
     
A total of 16 restaurants were targeted by the group. "The number included even some restaurants that I have never visited before. I was just told that I am not allowed to enter the premises because I am a Roma", Hagert reports.
      According to Hagert, this is more or less a phenomenon that exists only in Pori, as it has never happened to him elsewhere in Finland nor abroad.
      "The local restaurants are so unanimous that none of them was willing to sell even a bottle of soda to my four-year-old son last summer. The same situation exists in spare-parts outlets and repair services. When I mention my name, I get no help", Hagert concludes.
     
The Equality Act forbids both private and public discrimination, but until now, there has been little or no proof.
      "On the basis of the proof, the case can be taken before the National Discrimination Tribunal", notes Yrsa Korkman from the Office of the Ombudsman for Minorities.
      In fact, the National Discrimination Tribunal has already given the first decision on the basis of ethnic or national origin. In Helsinki, a restaurant was found guilty of denying a woman with a Russian accent entrance to the premises.
      It is true that restaurants may deny entrance on the basis of the customer's earlier conduct, but according to the penal code, all discrimination not based on a person's own conduct is punishable by law.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Why do the doors stay closed to us? (23.5.2006)
  Taboos remain entrenched on both sides (23.5.2006)

Links:
  Romany education unit with the National Board of Education
  Romano Missio
  The Ombudsman for Minorities
  The National Discrimination Tribunal of Finland