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Campaigners express 'witch-hunt' fear

ROMA rights campaigners have expressed fears that the removal of children from families in Ireland and Greece will lead to a Europe-wide witch hunt. A Dublin-based couple provided DNA samples to gardai yesterday after the removal a blonde, blue-eyed seven-year-old girl from their home on Monday. And a fair-haired two-year-old boy was returned to his Roma parents yesterday afternoon after spending the night in the care of the Health Service Executive. The boy's father, who also has a four-year-old daughter, told reporters that gardai had called to their home in Athlone, Co Westmeath and removed the child on Tuesday evening. The parent spent three hours being questioned by gardai and underwent a DNA test to prove the blonde toddler's parentage. The two cases come just days after a young girl known as Maria was discovered during a police raid on a Roma camp in Greece, which has been widely covered by the international media. Executive director of the European Roma Rights Centre Dezideriu Gergely yesterday said that the authorities were acting on the assumption that all Roma were dark-skinned but that many had pale skin and blond hair. He cautioned against labelling the entire Roma community at a time when there was an emphasis being placed on criminality.

His colleague Marianne Powell said she was concerned the Greek and Irish cases could "spur an anti-Roma backlash" among far-right groups, saying any criminal activity should be treated on an individual basis and not "on a whole group or ethnicity". Aisling Twomey of the Dublin-based Traveller rights group Pavee Point urged public not to use the cases as a "platform for intolerance".