A/49/677 English Page 18 citizens of the two new republics had to apply again for new citizenship. In Slovakia there was no problem, since all the applications for Slovak citizenship were accepted. The Immigration Act of the Czech Republic, on the contrary, makes it very difficult for certain groups, and especially for the many Sinti and Roma of Slovak origin, to get Czech citizenship. Under the Czech Immigration Act, foreigners can only obtain Czech citizenship if they have resided five years in the country prior to their application and have no criminal record. Many Sinti and Roma living in the Czech Republic do not fulfil these requirements and are thus stateless. Human rights organizations consider this law highly discriminatory and foresee that more than 100,000 Sinti and Roma will become stateless. The deadline for the application for Czech citizenship was 1 July 1994. By then, only 30 per cent of all Gypsies living in the Czech Republic had received Czech citizenship. 85. The Special Rapporteur has learned from other sources of acts of violence perpetrated against the Roma in Romania (lynching of Roma on 21 September 1993 in the town of Hadareni), Bulgaria (cases of torture, maltreatment and aggression in the towns of Dubovo, Stara Zagora, Olushnik and Pazardjik), and Germany (two refugees of Roma origin died on 28 September 1994 after an incident of arson in the town of Herford). 37/ B. Racism and racial discrimination against Blacks, negrophobia 86. This aspect of the question will be taken up in the report of the Special Rapporteur’s mission to the United States of America. In the present report, therefore, he would like to report incidents that have occurred in other regions of the world. 87. In Germany, the racist propaganda of the extreme right is particularly negrophobic. 38/ 88. Attempts on the lives of Blacks and violence against them are more significant. For example, the Embassy of Nigeria at Bonn had to protest to the German authorities against the maltreatment of Nigerian asylum-seekers by the German authorities. Most Nigerian asylum-seekers are turned down, since they are not able to prove that they are politically persecuted in their country of origin. According to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nigeria does not cooperate and refuses to take rejected Nigerian asylum-seekers back. It seems that, within a period of three years, 24 Nigerian asylum-seekers in Germany have died as a result of maltreatment by the German authorities. In August 1994, a rejected Nigerian asylum-seeker who was sent back to Nigeria by plane, died as a result of a sedative injection. According to the letter from the Embassy, some of the Nigerian victims died during their stay in a police cell. 89. The German Ministry of Home Affairs has sent the letter written by the Nigerian Embassy to the seven Federal states where the Nigerian asylum-seekers died. The governments of those states are requested to open an inquiry as soon as possible into the real causes of the deaths of the 24 Nigerian asylum-seekers and into the case of Amadeu Antonio Kirova, who was kicked to death while three policemen allegedly failed to come to his rescue. /...