Having taken into account all information made available to it by the complainants, their counsel and the State party, Adopts the following decision under article 22, paragraph 7, of the Convention. 1.1The complainants are 65 persons, all of Romani origin and nationals of Serbia and Montenegro. They claim that Serbia and Montenegro has violated articles 1, paragraph 1, 2, paragraph 1, 12, 13, 14 and 16, paragraph 1, of the Convention. They are represented by Mr. Dragan Prelevic, attorney at law, the Humanitarian Law Center, a non-governmental organization based in Serbia and Montenegro, and the European Roma Rights Center, an NGO based in Hungary. 1.2In accordance with article 22, paragraph 3 of the Convention, the Committee transmitted the complaint to the State party on 13 April 2000. The facts as presented by the complainants 2.1On 14 April 1995 at around 10 p.m., the Danilovgrad Police Department received a report indicating that two Romani minors had raped S.B., a minor ethnic Montenegrin girl. In response to this report, at around midnight, the police entered and searched a number of houses in the Bozova Glavica Roma settlement and took into custody all of the young male Romani men present in the settlement (all of them among the complainants to the Committee). 2.2The same day, also at around midnight, 200 ethnic Montenegrins, led by relatives and neighbours of the raped girl, assembled in front of the police station and publicly demanded that the Municipal Assembly adopt a decision expelling all Roma from Danilovgrad. The crowd shouted slogans against the Roma, threatening to “exterminate” them and “burn down” their houses. 2.3Later, two Romani minors confessed under duress. On 15 April, at between 4 and 5 a.m., all of the detainees except those who had confessed were released from police custody. Before their release, they were warned by the police to leave Danilovgrad immediately with their families because they were at risk of being lynched by their non-Roma neighbours. 2.4At the same time, police officer Ljubo Radovic went to the Bozova Glavica Roma settlement and told the Romani residents of the settlement that they must evacuate the settlement immediately. The officer’s announcement caused panic. Most residents fled towards a nearby highway, where they could take buses for Podgorica. Only a few men and women remained in the settlement to safeguard their homes and livestock. At approximately 5 a.m., officer Radovic returned to the settlement, accompanied by police inspector Branko Micanovic. The officers told the remaining Roma still in their homes (including some of the complainants) to leave Danilovgrad immediately, as no one could guarantee their safety or provide them with protection. 2.5At around 8 a.m. the same day, a group of non-Roma residents of Danilovgrad entered the Bozova Glavica Roma settlement, hurling stones and breaking windows of houses owned by the complainants. Those Roma who had still not left the settlement (all of them among the complainants) hid in the cellar of one of the houses from which they eventually managed to flee through the fields and woods towards Podgorica. 2.6In the course of the morning of 15 April, a police car repeatedly patrolled the deserted Bozova Glavica settlement. Groups of non-Roma residents of Danilovgrad gathered in different locations in the town and in the surrounding villages. Around 2 p.m. the nonRoma crowd arrived in the Bozova Glavica settlement - in cars and on foot. Soon a crowd of at least several hundred non-Roma (according to different sources, between 400 and 3,000 persons were present) assembled in the then deserted Roma settlement. 2.7Between 2 and 3 p.m., the crowd continued to grow and some began to shout: “We shall evict them!” “We shall burn down the settlement!” “We shall raze the settlement!” Shortly after 3 p.m., the demolition of the settlement began. The mob, with stones and other objects, first broke windows of cars and houses belonging to Roma and then set them on fire. The crowd also destroyed and set fire to the haystacks, farming and other machines, animal feed sheds, stables, as well as all other objects belonging to the Roma. They hurled explosive devices and “Molotov” cocktails that they had prepared beforehand, and threw burning cloth and foam rubber into houses through the broken windows. Shots and explosions could be heard amid the sounds of destruction. At the same time, valuables were looted and cattle slaughtered. The devastation endured unhindered for hours. 2.8Throughout the course of the destruction, the police officers present failed to act in accordance with their legal obligations. Shortly after the attack began, rather than intervening to halt the violence, the officers simply moved their police car to a safe distance and reported to their superior officer. As the violence unfolded, police officers did no more than feebly seek to persuade some of the attackers to calm down pending a final decision of the Municipal Assembly with respect to a popular request to evict Roma from the Bozova Glavica settlement. 2.9The outcome of the anti-Roma rage was the levelling of the entire settlement and the burning or complete destruction of all properties belonging to its Roma residents. Although the police did nothing to halt the destruction of the Roma settlement, they did ensure that the fire did not spread to any of the surrounding buildings, which belonged to the non-Roma. 2.10The police and the investigating magistrate of the Basic Court in Danilovgrad subsequently drew up an on-site investigation report regarding the damage caused by those who took part in the attack. 2.11Official police documents, as well as statements given by a number of police officers and other witnesses, both before the court and in the initial stage of the investigation, indicate that the following non-Roma residents of Danilovgrad were among those who took part in the destruction of the Bozova Glavica Roma settlement: Veselin Popovic, Dragisa Makocevic, Gojko Popovic, Bosko Mitrovic, Joksim Bobicic, Darko Janjusevic, Vlatko Cacic, Radojica Makocevic. 2.12Moreover, there is evidence that police officers Miladin Dragas, Rajko Radulovic, Dragan Buric, Djordjije Stankovic and Vuk Radovic were all present as the violence unfolded and did nothing or not enough to protect the Roma residents of Bozova Glavica or their property.