PRESOV, Slovakia, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A court in Slovakia has ruled that schools cannot place Roma children in segregated classes, Amnesty International said Wednesday.
Tuesday's decision by the Regional Court in Presov cannot be appealed, the group said.
"This landmark judgment is a signal to the authorities, including the Ministry of Education, that segregation of Romani pupils on the basis of ethnicity violates the right to equality and Slovakia's international obligations to end discrimination," said Marek Marczyński, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Program Director at Amnesty International.
The group known as Roma or Romani were formerly called gypsies. They migrated to Europe from India, remaining a distinctive people with their own language.
Amnesty said it has been documenting the segregation of Romani in Slovakian schools since 2006. The court ruling came in the case of an elementary school in the village of Šarisske Michaľany.
