Targeting Marginalized Roma Communities during the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia

Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) is organizing a seminar where our President and Senior Researcher Dr Svetluša Surová will present findings from her comprehensive research on quarantining Marginalized Roma Communities during the first and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Slovakia.

Slovakia has deployed heavily securitized responses toward Roma during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the militarized quarantine of six Roma settlements. Throughout the second wave, Slovakia was one of the few EU states – if not the only – that again resorted to quarantining whole buildings, streets, or settlements where Roma lived with the assistance of police and armed forces. Militarized quarantines limited or seriously violated the fundamental rights and freedoms of the members of the Marginalized Roma Communities (MRCs) in Slovakia.

Dr Surová will firstly explain who, how and why securitized Roma communities and secondly, she will elucidate the shortcomings of the official acts of Regional Offices of Public Health specifically targeting MRCs. The broader implications of these discriminatory policies and practices against minorities for democracy, human and minority rights will be discussed as well.

Speaker:

Dr Svetluša Surová (Minority Issues Research Institute, SK)

Moderator:

Ábel Ravasz (former Government Plenipotentiary for Roma Communities during 2016-2020)

This seminar is organized by the Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI).