Budapest, Marseille, Rome, 11 August 2011:
The Sarkozy Government’s infamous campaign to evict and deport Roma from France, which rose to prominence one year ago, is continuing aggressively. In Marseille, between June and August 2011 alone, a minimum of 500 Roma have been evicted from camps. A large-scale eviction of around 150 people happened just this morning. In a similar vein, Roma in Italy are constantly victimised by ongoing and repeated evictions. The ERRC and its partner organisations sent letters to French and Italian authorities expressing concern about the continuing forced evictions of Romani communities in Rome and Marseille.
According to Medecins du Monde, between June and August 2011 alone a minimum of 500 Roma have been evicted from camps in Marseille. Some of them were subjected to violence from private actors that was not investigated or punished, and others were subjected to police abuse. Roma were made homeless and then scattered around Marseille, becoming yet more vulnerable to violent attacks and police harassment. The ERRC also documented several alarming incidents of police violence which have not been properly investigated or punished. French authorities are violating a number of their obligations under international law, including the right to adequate housing and protection from forced eviction, the right to private and family life and freedom from inhuman and/or degrading treatment and discrimination. Continue reading No Place for Roma: French and Italian Authorities Aggressively Evict Roma
Category Archives: Posts in English
Another arson attack on Romani home
Krty, Central Bohemia, Aug 10 (CTK) – An unknown perpetrator attacked a house inhabited by Romanies with a Molotov cocktail in Krty yesterday, and one man was lightly injured, but the fire was extinguished immediately, local police spokeswoman Sona Budska has told CTK.
A similar case occurred recently in Bychory, central Bohemia, where a burning torch was thrown into a Romany house. No one was injured.
The incident in Krty occurred at 1:00 CEST in the night.
„Someone threw a Molotov cocktail into a railway house where some 12 decent Romanies who cause no problems are living,“ Budska said.
One of the inhabitants suffered leg burns probably when he was extinguishing the fire, she added.
The police are investigating the case on suspicion of an attempt to cause serious bodily harm for which the perpetrator would face up to 12 years in prison if found guilty.
„So far we cannot clearly say that the case was racially motivated,“ Budska said without elaborating.
Another person lived in the house until recently and the police do not rule out that the attack might have targeted the Romanies by mistake.
Quelle: Prague Daily Monitor
Stand: 11.08.2011
Day Of Remembrance Of Romani And Sinti Extermination
A meeting of the Joint Government-National Minorities Commission’s Team for Romani Affairs was held in Cracow. On Tuesday its members visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Observances of the Day of Remembrance of Romani and Sinti Extermination are events accompanying Poland’s European Union Council Presidency.
‘It is very important that such a day has been established. And its date was by no means coincidental, because it was on 2nd August 1944 that the Gypsy camp at Auschwitz was liquidated,’ stressed Elżbieta Radziszewska, Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment. The Romani Team will also support the Romani minorities’ efforts to establish a European Romani Extermination Remembrance Day.’ Continue reading Day Of Remembrance Of Romani And Sinti Extermination
Remembering the Roma Holocaust
In Budapest today, a group of citizens gathered at the Holocaust memorial on the banks of the Danube in a silent and solemn commemoration for the estimated half-million Roma who perished in the Baro Porrajmos („Great Devouring“) at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.
The death toll included almost 3,000 Roma men, women, and children who were put to death on the night of August 2-3, 1944, when the Germans liquidated the Zigeunerlager („Gypsy camp“) at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The camp leadership originally decided to murder the inhabitants of the „Gypsy compound“ in May 1944. Some 50-60 members of a special SS unit sealed off the compound and ordered the Roma out. Forewarned, the Roma armed themselves with iron bars, pipes, shovels, and any other improvised weapons to hand and refused to move.
In the face of resistance, the SS withdrew and called off the operation. Three thousand Roma capable of work were then transferred to other camps. Some two months later the SS liquidated the 2,898 who remained. Most of the victims were ill, elderly men, women, and children. A handful of children who had hidden during the operation were captured and killed in the following days. Continue reading Remembering the Roma Holocaust
Interview with Romani family attacked by racists in Býchory, Czech Republic
Racists have struck in the Czech Republic again, this time using a flaming torch in Býchory, Kolín district. During the early morning hours of Monday, the torch was thrown through the living room window of the family of Eva Douchová and Milan Demeter. Some media have incorrectly reported that the torch was put out by their nine-year-old son. He was in fact asleep, and the torch was put out by an adult friend of theirs who was watching television in the living room. In addition to a son, Douchová and Demeter also have a young daughter. „We were lucky they threw it into the living room – if they had aimed for the next window over, that’s where the children sleep, right beneath the window,“ Eva Douchová told news server Romea.cz. Continue reading Interview with Romani family attacked by racists in Býchory, Czech Republic
Minister apologises to Roma Gypsy family for police brutality
Serbian police minister Ivica Dacic Tuesday issued an apology to a Roma family for police brutality in a case that shocked the public and sparked protests by human rights organisations.
Dacic received a Roma youth, Danijel Stojanovic and his father Gani, after it was discovered that Danijel was brutally beaten by police in the eastern city of Vrsac four years ago.
The scandal wound up on the popular Youtube video-sharing website and caught public attention after one of three policemen who took part in the beating sold his mobile telephone on which he filmed the beating in Vrsac police station.
Apologizing to Danijel, now 22, Dacic said two police officers had been arrested over the beating and legal proceedings were under way for a third who had in the meantime retired, Dacic said.
Police claimed Stojanovic and his father were involved in criminal activities, but Dacic said these allegations could not justify the policemen’s brutal behaviour.
“It is in the public interest that citizens think well of police, not badly,” Dacic said. “I hope this event will be a turning point for police and for the Stojanovic family and that all will draw a lesson from it,” he added.
Police brutality was widespread in Serbia due a lack of reform including internal controls, according to Ivan Kuzmanovic, an official from Serbia’s Helsinki Committee for Human Rights group.
His organization had interviewed about 300 prisoners in Serbian jails and more than 200 of them complained that they had been subject to “some sort of torture” by police, Kuzmanovic told Belgrade television B92.
Quelle: adnkronos
Stand: 28.06.2011
Roma NGO calls for change to rules on preschool access in Czech Republic
The Jekhetani Luma civic association is drawing attention to the fact that while the town of Mladá Boleslav has just announced it will be increasing the capacity of its nursery schools, many families have no hope of accessing them. The children of families who have long lived in the town but have their permanent residencies registered elsewhere will have no chance of attending the preschools. These families moved to the town for work not only from other parts of the Czech Republic, but also from abroad.
Instead of raising their standards of living, however, many of these families found themselves facing the bottom of the barrel. Even though both parents would like to work, the father is the one who ends up making a living for the whole family. The mother must stay home with the child or children, and if she can’t register her child in nursery school, she ends up having to stay home even after her maternity leave is over. Because of high housing costs in the region, families often have a hard time surviving. Children remain at home who should be attending nursery school for at least the last year before their mandatory school attendance begins so as to acquire or strengthen the awareness and skills needed to handle the transition to school and get used to a regular regime and working in a collective.
This very often happens to the children of parents who are unable to systematically prepare their children at home for the transition to nursery school itself. Some of these children may even have been recommended for preschool by a Pedagogical-Psychological Counseling Center or their pediatrician. The Schools Act says all pre-schoolers, i.e., children in their last year prior to enrolling into elementary school, have the right to free education at a nursery school. However, this right depends on the parents having registered their permanent residency in that particular municipality. Continue reading Roma NGO calls for change to rules on preschool access in Czech Republic
Silvio Berlusconi warns Milan could become ‚Gypsytown‘
The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has warned that Milan would be turned into „Gypsytown“ if his candidate for mayor is defeated.
His ally, the incumbent Mayor Letizia Moratti, faces a second round in elections after being beaten in the first round last week.
Mr Berlusconi said Milan was „besieged by foreigners“ and risked being surrendered to the „far left“.
The BBC’s Rome correspondent says he is unashamedly playing the race card.
Ms Moratti’s defeat angered Mr Berlusconi’s coalition partners, the anti-immigration Northern League, and it has probably put him under pressure to put race at the centre of the election campaign, says our correspondent Duncan Kennedy.
Immigration has become a big issue at a time when thousands of migrants continue to arrive in Italy, escaping upheavals in North Africa. Continue reading Silvio Berlusconi warns Milan could become ‚Gypsytown‘
Gyspy scare stories given Jewish makeover
A group campaigning for the rights of Britain’s traveller communities has set up a website substituting the word gypsy in „blatantly racist“ headlines with the word Jew.
The Dale Farm Solidarity group built Jewify to raise awareness of the „official institutions, mainstream politicians, or newspapers openly espousing…racism against Gypsies“.
The site allows users to see what newspaper articles would look like if their subject was the Jewish people. A 2008 story in the Express about politician Tessa Jowell’s reaction to a gypsy camp near her house was altered to read: „Anger at Jewish invasion near Jowell’s retreat“.
A Mirror story from earlier this headlined was given the new headline: „Jews lose driving licences for allegedly paying people to pass tests for them“.
According to the creators, while „racism of many kinds, including antisemitism, is alive and well“ in the UK, it only remains socially acceptable when directed at Travellers and Roma people.
Referring to the Daily Mail’s coverage of Oswald Mosley and the fascist movement in the 1930s, the creators added: „Whipping up fear against Travellers and other racial minorities is nothing new for [them].
„But when the blackshirts tried to march through Jewish neighbourhoods in the East End of London, anti-fascists rallied in defence of their Jewish neighbors.„We say again, No Pasaran! They shall not pass.“
Quelle: CFCA
Stand: 04.05.2011
Bulgarian Skinheads Stage Pathetic Anti-Roma Protest
Just 30 persons attented a self-styled protest against „Roma privileges“ in front of the Bulgarian Parliament Sunday afternoon, out of some 14,000 who had stated their attendance on Facebook.
Some of the participants bore the blatant signs of skinhead groups, with all of them in their teens or twenties.
The youths did not specify any demands whatsoever, did not claim allegiance to a party or organization and refused to speak to the media.
Only one girl, aged 18, voiced an opinion by speaking to the BGNES agency, extravagantly putting the blame on the government and not on the Roma community.
„Those in power are to blame for everything. They’re washing their hands with the Roma. If the Roma were educated and had good jobs, we wouldn’t have such problems,“ said the teenager.
Sunday’s protest had no official permission by the Sofia Municipality. It had raised an outcry from Bulgarian rights organizations.
Quelle: Novinite
Stand: 01.05.2011