Sinti and Roma are especially affected by prejudice, discrimination, racism, according to the Antiziganism Reporting and Information Center in Germany (MIA), which has documented the nature and scale of antiziganism in the country in its latest annual report.

The report recorded 1,678 antiziganism cases in 2024, ranging from verbal abuse to assaults — a significant increase on the 621 reported in its first edition, published for the year 2022.

"The incidents documented in this report clearly show that verbal stigmatization and antiziganism propaganda paves the way for discrimination and for physical attacks up to life-threatening violence," Mehmet Daimagüler, Germany's first federal commissioner against antiziganism, wrote in the foreword.

A lawyer by profession, Daimagüler was appointed in 2022 but was replaced by the new German government in June with Michael Brand, a member of the Bundestag for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and state secretary at the Family Ministry, which supported the MIA report.

Brand took over the office in difficult times. "It is absolutely clear, in light of the increase in extremism fanned from within and outside Germany, that we must now especially protect minorities such as the Sinti and Roma from the effects of extremism and discrimination," he said.

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