Some 12,000 marched in Paris Sept. 4 to protest the mass expulsion of Roma migrants and other security measures adopted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government. Protests were also held in at least 135 other cities and towns across France and elsewhere in Europe. Human rights and anti-racism groups, labor unions and left-wing political parties organized the marches, which are estimated to have brought 100,000 to the streets nationwide.

On Sept. 2, Slovakia commemorated the victims of a massacre in the Devínska Nová Ves quarter of Bratislava three days earlier with an official day of mourning, following a decision at an extraordinary cabinet session. The cabinet also approved compensation for relatives of the victims. In the attack, a 48-year-old attacker shot seven people and injured 15 others, including a Czech citizen, before committing suicide after evidently being fatally shot by a police bullet. The targeted family was of mixed ethnic Slovak and Roma composition, leading widespread suspicion of a racist motive in the attack. (Romea.cz, Sept. 2; Romea.cz, Sept. 1; Radio Slovakia International, Aug. 31 )

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance on Aug. 24 joined critics of French mass deportations of Roma who overstay their visas and summary demolition of their encampments. The commission accused the French government of "stigmatizing Roma migrants" and holding them "collectively responsible for criminal offenses." On Aug. 22, Pope Benedict XVI urged French pilgrims "to accept human diversity," and Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, was promised a meeting with the interior minister to discuss the Roma policy after he denounced it as a "circus." (AP, AFP, NYT, Aug. 26)

Slovak police intervened Aug. 7 against a march by the far-right Our Slovakia People's Party (LSNS) in front of the castle in Bratislava. Ten were arrested, including Marián Kotleba, leader of the Slovak Brotherhood, an allied right-wing organization. Authorities allowed the event to take place, but police blocked protesters when they tried to march to the statue of Prince Svatopluk on the castle grounds. Local media reported that one detainee's head was bloodied.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will evict some 300 squatter camps in a crackdown on Roma immigrants and "Travellers." People in the camps found to be living illegally in France will be expelled, Sarkozy said announcing the move. The order is a response to riots last week in which Travellers armed with hatchets and iron bars attacked the police station in the Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan. The riot erupted after a gendarme shot and killed a Traveller youth who had driven through a checkpoint. Sarkozy pledged that those responsible for the violence will be "severely punished." The announcement came in a meeting between Sarkozy and top law enforcement officials at the Elysee Palace. Groups representing Travellers and Roma were not invited.

In an equivocal ruling that sparked voluble reactions while resolving nothing, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague found by a 10-to-4 vote July 22 that Kosova's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia was legal—but carefully avoided calling the state of Kosova legal. ICJ president Hisashi Owada stated rather obviously that international law contains no "prohibition on declarations of independence" and that Kosova's declaration therefore "did not violate international law."

On July 11, tens of thousands gathered to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica of nearly 8,000 captive Muslim men by Bosnian Serb rebel forces—the bloodiest episode of the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia, recognized by the international community as an act of genocide. A special ceremony at Potocari cemetery outside the eastern Bosnian town included internment of the remains of 775 recently identified victims, joining the 3,749 already there. Notably, the ceremony was attended by Serbian President Boris Tadic and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as Charles English, US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). (AFP, July 10; BNO News, July 7) In a sign of hope, Serbian citizens in Belgrade erected a makeshift memorial to the Srebrenica victims, made of old shoes stuffed with personal messages. (RFE/RL, July 10) But, despite official and spontaneous commemorations, the accused military author of the massacre remains at large, whereabouts ostensibly unknown.

Four suspected members of armed Basque separatist group ETA were arrested May 20 in a raid on an apartment bloc in Bayonne, France—including presumed ETA military commander Mikel Kabikoitz Carrera Sarobe, Spain's most wanted man. One detained accomplice was identified as Arkaitz Aguirregabiria del Barrio, ETA's presumed second in command, who is wanted in France for the shooting of a police officer in March. The arrests come as a Spanish court convicted three ETA militants in the 2006 Madrid airport bombing that killed two Ecuadorans. ETA is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and is held responsible for more than 800 deaths over the past 40 years. (Irish Times, Reuters, May 21; Jurist, May 20)