Dr. Iulius Rostas, Visiting Professor at the National School of Political Science and Administration enumerated three factors that make Roma more vulnerable to hate crime: first, they are politically under-represented; and there are no mainstream parties taking up issues faced by Roma and representing the general interest of the Roma; second, weak state institutions fail to protect the rights of their citizens, including the Roma; and third, and may be most importantly, the persistent and wide-spread racism against Roma, anti-gypsism. Dr. Rostas stressed that while hate speech against Roma is an everyday occurrence, since COVID-19 lock-down, the public discourse against Roma has reached unacceptable levels of racism. The ethnicisitation of the pandemic is a feature of the situation of Roma. In the main narratives of the pandemic, Roma became the main responsible for spreading the disease. Politicians, law enforcement agencies and media framed the Roma as the main source of spreading the disease. Dr. Rostas explained that the pandemic exacerbates social inequalities, there is a lack of access to basic services and public goods and in order to have access to minimal subsistence, members of marginalized groups, such as Roma, are indirectly forced to break these restrictions. They are then portrayed by law enforcement agencies as a social danger and those that spread the disease. Dr. Rostas also emphasised that while law enforcement agents had been sporadically policing Roma communities, during the pandemic they showed up in significant numbers to isolate these communities using force and sending a message that the Roma represent a significant danger. He expressed concern about the excessive use of force during the interventions, including about the impunity, even more visible during the pandemic. Dr. Rostas indicated that the European anti-discrimination legal framework is very weak in protecting minorities against hate speech. He stated that the protection under the penal law is stronger, although some states do not properly define hate speech and hate crime. In any case, the number of cases under the penal law is very low and in some countries, the number of penal cases based on hate speech are in single digits, if at all. The recommendations formulated by Dr. Rostas included the following: states should monitor hate speech and racism against Roma and other minorities regularly, presenting disaggregated data on hate speech; and programmes and initiatives to combat hate speech (such as code of conducts for politicians and journalists, and prizes for inclusive discourses and practices, for political actors and media) should be developed Ms. Beena J Pallical, General Secretary of the Economic Educational rights wing within the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) highlighted the caste-based discrimination endured by over 260 million Dalits, which has led to their exclusion and discrimination and being victims of violence, including atrocities and massacres. 7