The German register of discrimination against Roma and Sinti reported on Monday 1,233 incidents last year, almost twice as many as the year before.
The interest group of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma partly attributes the increase to more frequent reporting of incidents, but nevertheless considers the trend worrying.
“This concerns us greatly against the background of history,” council head Romani Rose said on Monday, referring to the murder of 500,000 Sinti and Roma during the Nazi period. She called on the authorities to take action and noted a major increase in violence against the two population groups.
The authority recorded 10 cases of what it called “extreme violence”, along with another 40 attacks, 46 threats and 27 cases of property damage. Its head, Silas Kropf, reported that a Sinti and Roma grave had been defaced with swastikas and that there had been arson in the town of Solingen.
He also noted anti-Sinti and anti-Roma slogans chanted in football stadiums and right-wing propaganda inciting violence against the groups.
Most reported cases involved insult, exclusion and discrimination, with 600 cases of ‘verbal stereotyping’ or insults.
A further 502 cases involved discrimination, with a quarter involving official bodies including social and youth agencies and the police.
“Police were involved in 83 of the reported incidents,” Kropf said, with three cases involving extreme violence. He pointed to a case where a police dog was unleashed to bite a handcuffed man on the ground, seriously injuring him.
Germany is home to 150,000 German Sinti and Roma, plus about 100,000 Roma migrants.
