E/CN.4/2002/24 page 22 In a statement, Tony Blair’s official spokesman said that the Prime Minister shared David Blunkett’s view that it was a law-and-order issue. He said that there may initially have been an element of provocation from the far right at some point during Saturday, but first evidence suggested that this was “simply thuggery”, and local people intent on “having a go at the police” and in the process destroying their own community. 3. Switzerland 49. The Federal Commission against Racism has evaluated the situation of the far right and noted “an increase in the activity of far-right groups advocating violence, in their degree of organization and more particularly in their insolence”. In particular, members of such groups distinguished themselves by booing senior federal officials at the celebration of the Swiss national day in Geneva on 1 August 2001. The Commission considers that “extremist rhetoric can exist only in an environment where it is accepted or at least tacitly tolerated. Political discourse which persists in accepting, indeed promoting the exclusion of certain human beings and resorting to derogatory images of certain population groups distorts the debate and surreptitiously introduces an exclusion effect.” Consequently, the Commission notes, “any discussion of policy on foreigners inevitably includes ideas such as invasion, cultural incompatibility, racial predisposition to violence, inability to integrate and criminality of foreigners”. The Commission has worked in association with a working group on prevention of far-right extremism. In this context, it envisages not only preventive measures for which the police would be responsible, but also, and especially, political and social measures; in this regard in September it published a framework document on action to combat far-right extremism, in which it states that right-wing extremism must be considered in a global political context, that it can be combated only through a series of targeted measures taken sufficiently in advance and that punishment alone is not effective. D. Situation of Roma/Sinti/travellers 50. In his most recent reports (E/CN.4/2000/16/Add.1, E/CN.4/2001/21), the Special Rapporteur, following his visit to the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary, drew the particular attention of the Commission to the deplorable situation of the Roma/Sinti/travellers. He then participated, with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in working and consultation meetings with the NGOs dealing with the question of Roma/Sinti/travellers, and emphasized the promises and efforts made by the Governments of the countries concerned and by the European Union, which is making this question one of its priority concerns. 51. The European Roma Rights Centre, which has provided copious documentation on the precarious situation of Roma/Sinti/travellers, has laid particular stress on the discrimination which these peoples continue to suffer in the administration of justice, housing, employment, health and education. In the particular case of Bulgaria, the Centre informed the Special Rapporteur of an initiative aimed at ending the segregation of Roma children in schools. On 15 September 2000, some 300 Roma children from the area of the city of Vidin were taken by bus (“busing”, the same practice as that used in the United States in the 1960s at the time of the desegregation of schools in that country) by several NGOs supported by the Open Society