For Immediate ReleasePRESS RELEASE

U of T’s International Human Rights Clinic Wins Victory at European Court of Human Rights

(June 30, 2005, Toronto, ON) — The International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), housed at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, has won asignificant victory for international human rights in a case involving discrimination against Roma people in Romania.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France released its decision in Tanase vs. Romania on May 26, 2005 stating that every claim argued by the IHRC is admissible.

Under the supervision of IHRC Director and Adjunct Professor, Noah Novogrodsky, five U of T law students enrolled in the IHRC — Hannah Entwisle,Kathy Gruspier, Max Morgan, Caroline Wawzonek and Ivana Djordjevic — worked on this case for the past two years.

The story began 14 years ago in the Romanian villageof Bolintin Deal, Romania. Following a fight in which a non-Roma was stabbed to death, the town mayor, the police and the priest gathered a mob and 24 Roma families were beaten and driven from their homes by non-Roma villagers. The families, including that of Mr. Emilian Niculae, ran to a nearby forest to hide, or sought refuge with relatives in neighbouring villages. Many tried unsuccessfully to return to their village of 7,000, but attacks against Roma continued for years afterward.

After having exhausted all legal recourse in Romania, Mr. Emilian Niculae (a victim in the case and human rights activist) fled to Canada and enlisted the help of the IHRC to seek compensation for community members so that they can rebuild their homes and live free of harassment.

Romania argued that the case was inadmissible because the government had not ratified the European Convention on Human Rights at the time the violations occurred. The IHRC successfully refuted this claim by arguing that the effects of the 1991 mob violence continued long after Romania ratified the Convention, in 1994.

“The decision represents an important victory for the many Roma victims of the 1991 human rights abuses,” says Novogrodsky. “The ruling brings Mr. Emilian Niculae and other victims one step closer to just compensation for their losses and sets an important legal precedent for the rights of ethnic minorities.”

Mr. Niculae, who has been receiving phone and emails threats on his life, is afraid to go back to Romania where he still has family including his wife and 12-year old son.He is grateful the IHRC took on the case. “I feel that I have someone who can really help me and I’m not alone. I feel glad that one day we can prove what happened there, the racism and the violence and injustice against my people.”

In the coming months, the IHRC will prepare the case and seek to prove the losses suffered by the former residents of Bolintin Deal.

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For more information, please contact:

Noah Novogrodsky, Director, International Human Rights Clinicat 416.978.5540 or

Emilian Niculae at416.436 0511, for message.