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Swedish government ordered to pay damages for Roma register
STOCKHOLM – A Swedish court has awarded 30,000 kronor ($3,700) each in damages to 11 Roma plaintiffs who sued the government for discrimination, saying they were registered by police due to their ethnicity.
The case stems from revelations in 2013 by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that police in southern Sweden collected information on thousands of people with Roma ethnicity, even though many of them weren’t suspected of any crimes.
Police denied the register was based on ethnicity but admitted it wrongfully included distant relatives of people suspected of crimes.
In its ruling Friday, the Stockholm district court found that police added the 11 plaintiffs, who were not suspected of crimes, to the register solely due to their ethnicity. Judge Lena Egelin said that was “particularly offensive” given the Roma’s history of persecution.
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