Amnesty International
Annual Report Index > 2002

There were reports of racist attacks in which the police failed to protect the victims adequately. Some investigations into such attacks did not appear to have been conducted thoroughly and impartially.

Racist violence

There were reports of incidents of racially motivated violence in which the police authorities failed in their duty to protect the victims adequately.


In August, 20 Roma who were staying in a hotel in Koszelówka, near Plock, were attacked by 40 young men wielding clubs and stones. The attack followed an incident in a local discotheque in which a Romani youth had allegedly committed a theft. The mob, shouting threats and racist abuse, reportedly forced open the gate to the hotel yard and threw bricks through the windows, which were secured by metal bars. They broke car windshields and threw burning wood inside the vehicles. Apparently two police officers who were at the scene of the attack did not intervene to stop the violence. The mob dispersed when three police patrol cars arrived. One Romani man who was hit in the face with a brick was hospitalized while several others received treatment for lesser injuries. The police detained three men and subsequently charged nine for participating in a fight and causing damage to property. A police spokesman denied that the assault was racially motivated and claimed that the two officers present at the scene of the attack were unable to intervene.
In June, Simon Moleke Njie, a refugee from Cameroon, and his visitor, a Senegalese national, described how they were beaten by four men, one of whom had a wooden bat, while standing at a bus stop in Warsaw. The four men punched Simon Moleke Njie and shouted racist abuse at him. The two victims managed to escape in a taxi and went to a police station which was only 200m away. One of the three officers standing in front of the station reportedly laughed when he saw Simon Moleke Njie's head injury. Another officer asked him for his passport. The officers refused to call an ambulance or to take contact details for the taxi driver, who had witnessed some of the assault.

Investigations into some racially motivated incidents appeared not to be thorough and impartial and, as a result, those responsible for racist violence were not brought to justice.

In May, Florence Balagiza, an 18-year-old asylum-seeker from Rwanda, was reportedly attacked and racially abused by three men, one of whom was armed with a knife, near the refugee camp at Dabak. When she returned to the refugee camp and called the police she was told that they were busy. The police came the following day. Florence Balagiza explained that she was unable to pay for a forensic examination of the injuries she had suffered in the attack and was reportedly told that the police could not offer her any assistance ''because it was not their business''. In August she received the Pruszków Public Prosecutor's decision to terminate the investigation because it was not possible to establish the identity of the perpetrator. This document, which contained a detailed description of the incident which was described as ''robbery with the use of a knife'', failed to note the racist nature of the assault. Officials in the Public Prosecutor's Office did not question the victim.

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