Croatia must pay a fine to former Roma schoolchildren who were segregated into Roma-only classrooms in the 1990s.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that Croatia's practice of segregating Roma primary school students into Roma-only classes was discrimination. Zagreb must pay 4,500 euros ($6,200) in damages to the students, who are now aged 16 to 22.

The Strasbourg-based court ruled that the segregation, which was supposedly to improve the students' Croatian language skills, was actually based on ethnicity. The children did not receive any special language instruction in the segregated classes.

Separate but not equal

The court wrote that while special reading and writing classes for children not fluent in the language of classroom instruction were legal, segregating a "specific ethnic group" was not.

According to a 2001 census, there were about 9,500 Roma in Croatia, roughly 0.2 percent of the population, although other estimates put the number at nearly double that.

The ruling is an embarrassing turn of events for Croatia, which hopes to join the European Union this year.

smh/AP/kna
Editor: Martin Kuebler