Editorial Ta Nea: Keep calm!

The violent incidents we have seen over the last days in protests over a 16-year-old Roma boy being shot in the head in a police chase is unacceptable.

No social group under any circumstances can be allowed to take the law into its own hands.

In an organised polity, the state has a monopoly on violence, and an independent judiciary judges if violence is used when and how it should be.

These particular incidents of violence, however, are not unprovoked.

The 16-year-old was injured by a policeman’s bullet, not in a traffic accident.

He is not the first. There have been previous cases of unwarranted or excessive police violence.

This phenomenon must be confronted. The police should be trained not to open fire with their guns unless human lives are in danger.

Law 3169 of 2003 is clear about when a potentially deadly shooting is forbidden, and it applies to all Greek citizens.

In the case of Roma citizens, there is an additional particularity – the marginalisation of a segment of their community, due to the difficulties involved in their social integration, leads to delinquent behaviour.

Consequently, the state must expand initiatives and incentives for this integration to be achieved as harmoniously as possible.

Undoubtedly, the role of schools is paramount. Every child that aimlessly wanders the streets or Roma camps, instead of being in a classroom as it should, is in danger of drifting into lawless behaviour.

Although integration is desirable, it is not compulsory.

As with all others, the only obligation of Roma citizens is to respect the Constitution and the laws.

Their reluctance to integrate into the social whole cannot be used as a pretext either for discrimination against them or for their exclusion from welfare benefits.

What is needed right now from all sides is to be calm, to trust in the justice system, and to hope that the hope that the boy will survive,