Video taken in a police station in Slovakia shows Roma boys forced to hit each other. Slovak newspaper SME reports that the Kosice police set their dogs on the boys, who were also made to strip.

Release of the pictures coincides with the International Day of the Roma. It highlights the attitudes and problems faced by Europe’s Roma population. The president of the police authenticated the more than two-week-old recording. SME news editor Tom Nicholson said: “We went to Kosice and found the boys. They told us they stole a handbag and the police caught them. Before they had even called their parents, they were taken to a police station in the centre of town, where all these things happened.” The ethnic minority party Roma Initiative of Slovakia stressed the context of “social destitution and helplessness”. At last summer’s first EU ‘Roma Summit’, rights groups called for concrete strategies against problems Europe’s Roma face, notably in Hungary, Romania and Italy.

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