Human Rights Ombudsman Matjaz Hanzek said on Thursday that the government should thank him for his decision to notify international organisations of the recent relocation of a Roma family. He believes his actions saved Slovenia further shame and demonstrated that there is still an institution in the country that has the courage to speak out about issues.
Replying to legal expert Miro Cerar's accusation that he internationalised the case of the relocation of the Strojan family too soon, Hanzek said he did not agree. There is some points in which I will never agree with the government and waiting in this case would have been counterproductive, he told a panel in Ljubljana.

According to him, things would have become so complicated that it would have been even more difficult to solve them had he not reacted when he did.

Besides, the CoE's Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg was already informed of the developments, Hanzek said. He pointed that Hammarberg spoke critically of the government's attacks of Hanzek.

"Every authority needs 'Gypsies' so that it has something it can give to the people, so that the people can attack it when they need a scapegoat," Hanzek told the "Who Is Afraid of Difference?" panel.

The government is prepared to spend a lot of money on this, while it is not prepared to pay for integration, which is much cheaper, he added.

Media expert Sandra Basic-Hrvatin believes that the true problem lies in the fact that the media report about the Roma or other minorities only when problems arise.

According to her, the media's handling of the Strojan case was completely unacceptable. They turned a hateful, racist discourse towards minorities into something normal, Basic-Hrvatin claimed.

Meanwhile, Cerar said he thought the media clung to the issue as long as it brought them an audience. He added that the state should have been solving the issue along the way.

The state failed to provide for the implementation of basic legal provisions and people did not have a feeling that they were safe from threats, Cerar told the panel organised by Polituss student political science society.