Challenging online and offline Roma discrimination in Europe

ended

Led by women and men with direct experience of racism, the project will support Roma civil society organisations, volunteers and activists to improve reporting, rights-awareness, protection and interest representation of Roma victims. This project will mobilise volunteers and community members to challenge manifestations of antigypsyism, including online hate speech and hate crime, and the discrimination Roma face in accessing public services and exercising their fundamental rights. The guiding principle is that Roma must be empowered to directly challenge, expose and overcome the discrimination that impedes their access to justice. The partners organisations will build a network of Roma and non-Roma volunteers in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia, to gather evidence of hate speech and discrimination both online and offline; and to build trust with Roma communities to file both individual and mass complaints. The project’s objectives are · to increase the number of Roma filing official complaints and taking legal action when they experience discrimination; to increase rights awareness among Romani communities; · to combat anti-Roma hate speech and hate crime by monitoring, reporting and filing complaints against individuals, media platforms and news corporations, which amplify and disseminate racist content both offline and online; · to decrease the number of Romani victims of discrimination, and restore community trust in the institutions by improving access to justice. By increasing the proportion of Roma who file a report when they experience discrimination, the project aims to translate the subsequent decisions, recommendations and judgments into justice; to see that rights holders become more empowered; and duty bearers do their duty. These objectives and activities are central to the wider goal to ensure to ensure that Roma rights are recognised