In a published letter to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel dating back to 2009, Hammarberg calls for a halt on deportations to Kosovo in particular, saying that those deported there are exposed to political persecution and are forced to live in camps. He repeated this “urgent recommendation” one year later in a letter to the then German Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Mazière. A special committee organised by Hammarberg described a Roma camp in Kosovo as “a humanitarian catastrophe”. The Human Rights Commissioner also heavily criticised France’s mass deportation of Roma in 2010.