Slovakia: Residential hotel in Bratislava refuses to house Romani workers
The Tarif residential hotel in Bratislava, the captial of Slovakia, has refused to accommodate Romani people and has even ejected some of them from the facility. Slovak online daily Denník N decided to investigate after hearing of the ejections and the verbal insults that accompanied them.
Journalist Miro Kern used a hidden microphone to record his interaction at the residential hotel when he attempted to reserve accommodation for people whom he identified as “his” workers. The first question asked by the son of the residential hotel director, who was sitting in the reception area, was: “Are they white or Romani?”
When the son heard the customers would be Romani, he said the facility never rents to Romani people. “Two guys from our crew were stopped by the director of the residential hotel, who told them that he did not want to see anybody Romani here,” worker Štefan Krištof told Denník N.
Kern then introduced himself to the receptionist as a journalist and asked why the facility does not accommodate Romani customers. Allegedly the residential hotel has had bad experiences with previous Romani customers and the other, non-Romani people who live there do not want to be with them.
“You Roma are costing us business here. People are moving out of this residential hotel,” various Romani people quoted the management of the facility as telling them.
The director of the Tarif would not admit that he had ejected a group of Romani people the previous day from the residential hotel, nor would he admit that he verbally insulted them. Originally there had not been any problem with accommodating the workers – until the owners learned they were Romani.
The next morning, staff threw the Romani workers’ property out of the room, alleging they had not paid for the accommodation, which was not true. “For Romani people we have set aside the fourth floor because the other people don’t want to live with them or even see them in the corridors, but that floor is constantly full,” co-owner Igor Kopecký explained to Denník N.
