Communication N° 161/2000 Submitted by: Hajrizi Dzemajl et al. Alleged victim: The authors State party: Yugoslavia Date of adoption of Views: 21 November 2002 Subject matter: violent expulsion of complainants from Roma settlement 2.4 At the same time, police officer Ljubo Radovic came 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 of the settlement 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., police officer Ljubo 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. Procedural issue: none Substantive issues: failure promptly to investigate allegations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; right to complain; right to compensation Articles of the Convention: 12, 13, 14, 16 1.1 The complainants are 65 persons, all of Romani origin and nationals of the (former) Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. They claim that Yugoslavia 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, an NGO based in Yugoslavia, and the European Roma Rights Center, an NGO based in Hungary. 2.5 The same day, at around 8 a.m., 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 presently among the complainants to this Committee) were hidden in the cellar of one of the houses from which they eventually managed to flee through the fields and woods towards Podgorica. 1.2 In 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 2.1 On 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, 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 presently among the complainants to this Committee). 2.6 In 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 non-Roma 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. 2.2 The same day, around midnight, two hundred 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 addressed to the Roma, threatening to “exterminate” them and “burn down” their houses. 2.7 Between 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 cloths and foam 2.3 Later, two Romani minors confessed under duress. On 15 April, between 4 and 5 a.m., all of the detainees except those who confessed were released from police custody. Before their release, they were warned by the police to leave Danilovgrad immediately with their families because they would be at risk of being lynched by their non-Roma neighbours. 78