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Swedish hotel has to pay for discrimination of Roma
Stockholm, 17. 1. 2005, 7:43 (CTK)
Rejection of two Roma visitors while entering the swimming pool has become
expensive for a hotel placed in Swedish city Eskilstuna. Even though
employees still claim they are blameless, the hotel pays 200.000 Swedish
crowns (about 700.000 Czech crowns) as compensation to the rejected pair
for racial discrimination. This incident happened already last year, when
the pair wanted to go to the hotels swimming pool. Personnel, however,
withheld these guests with references to their Roma origin and with
references to other Roma guests who did not behave according to guests
rules in the swimming pool.
However, the injured pair went to ombudsman for questions on
discrimination. Since the ombudsman had not manage to negotiate over out-of-court
financial settlement, he decided to pass on this case to court with demand
for a 300.000 Swedish crowns (bout 1,050.000 Czech crowns) as a
compensation. The incident was to be only a misunderstanding according to
hotels personnel. Only under a threat of a lawsuit was hotel willing to
compensate each injured person with 100.000 Swedish crowns.
"This compensation should send a clear signal that racial discrimination
is not acceptable. It is for sure we will get much more notifications
about similar treatment." According to Swedish press agency TT, this has
been sated by Andres Wilhemsson, lawyer of the ombudsman office for
discrimination.
While existence of this office in Sweden, this has been
the highest amount paid to persons stricken by racial discrimination.
CTK |
