Challenging discrimination in schools
Naim Frasheri Primary school had an integrated population of ethnic Albanian, Romani and Egyptian pupils. Through a special program invitation, the school encouraged Romani and Egyptian children to the school with extending support and aid as school supplies and food as they were much poorer than the ethnic Albanians.
This provoked a ‘white fight’ and restlessness in the society between the Romani/Egyptian and Albanians as, very soon, the Romanians and the Egyptian kids outnumbered the Albanians.
The ERRC (European Roma rights centre) complained of unlawful racial segregation and that the Roma and Egyptian children at Naim Frasheri School were suffering from discrimination. The school discrimination was contrary to Protocol No.12 to the European Convention on Human Rights which Albania was also a part of it. Everyone in Albania is protected from discrimination based on race, ethnic origin, or colour by any public authority or in relation to any right protected by law. Not all European countries have agreed to be bound by Protocol no.12, but Albania has.
The European court issued a judgement largely agreeing with ERRC and It held that Albania had violated Article 1 of Protocol no.12 to the convention.
The Court affirmed that “discrimination means treating differently, without an objective and reasonable justification, persons in relevantly similar situations,” although in some circumstances different treatment is necessary to correct inequalities. Racial segregation, though, is not the kind of differential treatment that corrects inequalities – it instead violates a “fundamental value of democratic society” The Court cited that the school segregation violated the Convention’s prohibition against discrimination.