Category Archives: Posts in English

Analyse und Kritik des Antiziganismus, Antiziganistische Übergriffe, Fundstücke, Posts in English, Rumänien, Staatlicher Antiziganismus

9 Years Later – Romanian Government Hasn’t Kept Its Promises

The Cluj Napoca Court of Appeal found on Friday, July 25th that the Romanian government has failed to honour its commitments in relation to a Romani community in Hădăreni, Romania, who were the target of a pogrom in 1993.

In the 1993 pogrom three Romani men were killed and 18 Romani houses were destroyed by a mob with the active participation of local police. This was one of the most notorious of some 30 incidents of mob violence directed at Romani communities in Romania in the early 1990s. Several residents took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2005 authorities made commitments before the European Court of Human Rights to take action to tackle discrimination against the community. However, 9 years later, and 21 years after the initial incidents, the government has failed to fulfil its commitments.

Friday’s judgment, which is not final, underlined the authorities’ failure to honour the 2005 commitments, aimed at improving both relations between different ethnic groups, and also general living conditions in Hădăreni. Steps which the Court of Appeal ordered the authorities to take include opening a local medical clinic, hiring a Roma expert in the municipality and a school mediator and creating employment opportunities. The Court of Appeal also awarded moral damages of EUR 1500 for each applicant.

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and Romani Criss, who brought the court challenge on behalf of the community, welcome this judgment, in particular since it highlights the role that domestic courts can play in holding states responsible for their international legal commitments. The ERRC and Romani Criss call on the Romanian authorities to live up to their promises made in 2005.

Source: ERRC
Date: 29.07.2014

Analyse und Kritik des Antiziganismus, Antiziganistische Klischees, Frankreich, Fundstücke, Posts in English, Sonst in Europa, Staatlicher Antiziganismus

No Place in School for Roma Children in France?

According to research conducted by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in the beginning of 2014, children of many Roma in France have restricted access to primary education. More than half of those surveyed are out of school. The ERRC calls on French authorities to provide the children of Roma EU citizens with access to education.

The ERRC conducted participatory field research in six informal Romani settlements (in Seine-Saint-Denis, Marseille, and Lille), including interviews with 118 EU Romani citizens. The research was conducted with the active participation of six Romani women from Romania living in France.

The research shows that Roma who have moved to France from other EU Member States are exposed to high levels of discrimination and stereotyping resulting in the violations of their rights, notably the rights of their children.

“For my part, I did everything that was necessary and possible to enrol my child in school. We provided all the documents and papers. It’s the mayor that blocks the situation. Because they are Roma children, they treat them differently“ – stated a mother in Aulnay Sous Bois during an interview with the ERRC.

Less than half of the children of EU Romani citizens interviewed during this research are attending schools in France. According to interviews conducted by the ERRC, in most (60%) of the cases this was due to refusal of local officials, mostly French mayors, to enrol Romani children in school. This is despite the fact that French law makes it compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 16, French and foreign, to attend school.

“Refusal to enrol children is in direct violation of the national and international obligations of France. It also jeopardises the future of these children, diminishes their employment opportunities, and further aggravates the social exclusion of these Romani communities” – said Rob Kushen, the Chair of the Board of the ERRC.

On average the Roma EU citizens surveyed had been evicted six times since they arrived in France. These evictions are also detrimental to the situation of Romani children. Parents expressed their deep concerns that evictions cause psychological damage to their children and disrupt schooling.

The ERRC calls on the French authorities to investigate all reported instances of refusal to enrol Romani children, pursue sanctions against offending mayors, and provide support and information to Romani communities regarding the enrolment of their children. Authorities and courts should ensure that the best interests of children are a primary consideration in the context of any eviction.

Source: ERRC
Date: 28.07.2014

Analyse und Kritik des Antiziganismus, Antiziganismus von Rechts, Antiziganistische Übergriffe, Deutschland, Fundstücke, Geschichte des Antiziganismus, Polen, Posts in English

Remembering the Sinti and Roma of Auschwitz

On August 2, 1944, Nazis liquidated the concentration camp’s Gypsy section

At twilight on the evening of Aug. 2, 1944, big, wood-sided trucks arrived at the Gypsy family camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The prisoners were given sausage and a piece of bread and told that they were being taken to another camp. At first, the trucks drove off in a different direction from the gas chambers and crematoria, but as they doubled back toward the killing factories, the Gypsies began to struggle and fight the guards. “Betrayal!” they screamed. “Murder!”

A Hungarian Jew who heard the clamor from a nearby barrack later said that the memory made her blood run cold. “We heard yelling, German orders, the ever, ever-present German Shepherd dogs barking,” she recalled. “And then, screaming. I never, ever forget that screaming. Terrible screams. They must have known.”

On that August night, Nazis liquidated the Gypsy camp, killing nearly 3,000 Roma and Sinti—the two major groups of European Gypsies—in the gas chambers of Birkenau. They were women and men, elderly people and children, many of whom had been victims of Nazi medical experiments and forced sterilization. Their deaths were among the 20,000 Roma and Sinti who perished at Auschwitz—but a fraction of the hundreds of thousands murdered by the Nazis in mass killings and concentration camps. Continue reading Remembering the Sinti and Roma of Auschwitz →

Antiziganismus von Rechts, Antiziganistische Übergriffe, Frankreich, Fundstücke, Posts in English

Roma teen out of coma weeks after vigilante attack in France

A Roma teenager who was left struggling for his life after being brutally beaten by vigilantes in France has emerged from his coma and is talking, his lawyer said Sunday.
Gheorghe, who was initially mistakenly referred to as Darius when the incident took place last month, “is very well,” Julie Launois-Flaceliere told AFP. “He has emerged from his coma and his life is no longer in danger. He talks and recognizes his family, it’s very positive.” The 17-year-old was dragged into a basement in the Paris suburb town of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine on June 13, savagely beaten by a dozen residents of a housing estate who accused him of theft, and left unconscious in a supermarket trolley where he was later found. Suffering from severe brain injuries, Gheorghe was taken to a Paris hospital where he has been treated since the attack. Launois-Flaceliere said it was too early to assess the after-effects of his trauma, but added he appeared to be recovering his memory. A source close to the case said the judge tasked with investigating the incident was able to visit Gheorghe in hospital on Friday. The teenager, who does not speak French, has an interpreter and his hospital room is closely guarded. Gheorghe left Romania for France to join his parents who were already in the country. At the time of the incident, he and his family had only just moved into an abandoned house in the town just north of Paris. On June 13, he was taken by force in front of his parents by a group of assailants angered by a rumor that he had broken into an apartment in a nearby estate. It is unclear how many people beat him up, but more than a month after the incident, no one has yet been detained. Romas have long suffered discrimination across Europe, centuries after migrating there from India. The Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of Roma during World War II, and even now rights organizations have warned of a spike in violence against the community in Europe.

In France, many of the 20,000-or-so Roma come from Romania or Bulgaria in search of a better life, and often end up living in extreme poverty in makeshift settlements with little or no access to basic amenities including water.
These are systematically destroyed under a controversial, official French requirement, forcing the traditionally sedentary population to move on to other settlements. Their presence in illegal camps on the fringes of towns and cities has often spurred controversy in France where they are perceived as being behind a rise in petty crime.

Analyse und Kritik des Antiziganismus, Antiziganismus auf politischer Ebene, Fundstücke, Posts in English, Ungarn

Hungarian City Set to ‘Expel’ Its Roma

The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) is deeply concerned about a recent local government decree designed to expel Roma from Miskolc, a major city in Eastern Hungary. The ERRC sent its legal analysis to the European Commission to underline the unlawfulness of the action, urging the European Commission to take action against Hungary as its local decree is in breach of EU law. The local Romani community is holding a public rally in the city today to protest the Miskolc government’s actions.

The government of the city of Miskolc recently amended a decree on social housing that in effect seeks to drive Roma out from the city limits – adding a new, worrying chapter to this city government’s history of excluding Roma.

The decree foresees the demolition of the most impoverished low-comfort social housing neighbourhoods in the city (the so-called ‘numbered streets’) which are almost exclusively inhabited by Roma. The decree explicitly discriminates against people living in low-comfort social housing. It offers compensation to them to terminate their contracts, but only if they buy a property strictly outside the territory of Miskolc. That property cannot be sold or mortgaged for at least 5 years. No such restrictions apply to tenants of full comfort social housing – most of whom are non-Roma.

The local government has hardly concealed its aim to expel the Romani community of this neighbourhood, as the city’s equal opportunities programme acknowledges that low-comfort social housing neighbourhoods are occupied by Roma.

People living in these neighbourhoods will not only be forced out of the city, but will be at risk of becoming homeless.

The authorities of Miskolc have been pursuing since at least 2009 a policy of excluding and stigmatising the Romani population. Public statements from the police chief on the existence of ‘gypsy crime’ and from the mayor who spoke of his wish to clear the city from ‘anti-social’ Roma, prepared the ground for this attempt to expel Roma from the town. The local government’s law enforcement have also conducted 45 property inspections within a ten-month period targeting Roma neighbourhoods. The Romani tenants felt humiliated, particularly as no such measures were taken in any other areas of the city.

The ERRC considers this an egregious example of systemic discrimination and racism in an EU member state. The plans of the city of Miskolc contradict the Hungarian Constitution, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Race Equality Directive of the European Union, the European Convention on Human Rights, and commitments of Hungary under the European Union Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies.

The ERRC has urged the European Commission to remind the Hungarian authorities to adhere to their obligations and take steps to stop these violations of fundamental rights. The Commission should call on Hungary to nullify the decree, and if necessary, start infringement proceedings for this breach of EU law.

The ERRC’s Memorandum on the lawfulness under European and international law of amendment to Miskolc social housing law can be found here.

For more information, contact:

Sinan Gökçen
Media and Communications Officer
European Roma Rights Centre
Tel. +36.30.500.1324
[email protected]

Source: ERRC
Date: 25.06.2014

Antiziganistische Übergriffe, Frankreich, Fundstücke, Posts in English

Roma boy attacked in Paris: the picture that will shock France

François Hollande calls brutal gang assault on 16-year-old Roma boy ‚unspeakable and unjustifiable attack on all the principles on which our republic was founded‘

What happened to Darius in the City of Poets, a poor immigrant district in the bleak northern suburbs of Paris, has shocked France. Now, to add to the distressing accounts, a picture of the battered 16–year–old Roma boy, has been passed to The Telegraph. Darius was beaten by a gang of youths, dumped in a supermarket trolley and left for dead on the side of the road. A mob of about 20 balaclava–wearing vigilantes snatched the teenager from his family after he was accused of burgling a nearby flat. They dragged him from the squalid Roma camp where his family had moved a month ago, hauled him across the tram lines to the nearby housing estate, and pummelled him in the basement of a building. A neighbour, a Roma who has been living in the area for several years, later found the boy unconscious in a car park, slumped in a trolley, wearing his red T–shirt and track suit bottoms, his face swollen. „I brought him back here and called the ambulance,“ said the neighbour, who provided The Telegraph with the gruesome picture of the boy, who yesterday was still in a coma fighting for his life in a Paris hospital after suffering multiple skull fractures. Continue reading Roma boy attacked in Paris: the picture that will shock France →

Analyse und Kritik des Antiziganismus, Antiziganistische Klischees, Großbritanien, Posts in English

Police accused of ‘institutional racism’ towards Romanies

Inquiry launched after Gypsy officer says he was subjected to years of racial abuse

One of Britain’s largest police forces has launched a review into how it deals with Gypsies, Roma and Travellers after being accused of institutional racism by one of its own officers. Thames Valley Police said yesterday that it had reached a settlement with Constable Jim Davies, an English Romany Gypsy who claimed at an employment tribunal earlier this year that he had been subjected to years of racial abuse. PC Davies, 52, from Brackley, Northamptonshire, also alleged that he had witnessed other officers referring to Romany Gypsies as “pikeys”. His experiences led him to found Britain’s first Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association (GRTPA), which launched in March and now has 55 members. In a statement, Thames Valley Police said it would “not tolerate any form of discrimination towards any minority group”. It added: “In light of the issues and observations raised by PC Davies, a review of how Thames Valley Police engages with Gypsy Roma Traveller communities will be commenced. “This review will be conducted independently and will involve a review of existing policies and procedures to ensure Thames Valley Police serves all of its communities and ensures that any racial stereotyping or outdated practices and procedures are amended or removed.” PC Davies, who has worked for Thames Valley Police for 20 years and is currently in the fixed penalty unit, told The Independent he had never sought any financial compensation from the force because his only motivation was to “change things and make things better”. Although he was unable to talk about the specifics of his own case for legal reasons, PC Davies said he had set up the new association because of the lack of a “support network” for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller police officers, who he said faced “open discrimination”. “It’s not something that’s peculiar to the police, it’s there in all walks of life and all occupations,” he said. “Various members tell a similar story: it’s very rare for someone to challenge a colleague for racist behaviour or racist comments if those comments apply to Gypsies and Travellers. And that makes for a very difficult working environment.” Continue reading Police accused of ‘institutional racism’ towards Romanies →

Fundstücke, Geschichte des Antiziganismus, Posts in English, Staatlicher Antiziganismus, Tschechien

Pigs to stay near former Roma concentration camp

Sobotka: Czech Cabinet will not pay for demolition of pig farm in Lety

The center-left government of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, ČSSD) will not probably fund the demolition of the pig farm in Lety, situated on the site of a forced labor camp for Romanies during World War II, Sobotka said today.

Over 1,300 Romanies were interned in Lety during the German Nazi occupation, 327 of whom perished in the camp and over 500 were sent to the extermination camp in Auschwitz where most of them died. A memorial to the Romany Holocaust was set up at the former burial ground of the Lety concentration camp for Romanies. However, it is situated near a pig farm that is at the site now. Romanies and human rights activists have protested against it for years. Relatives of the Romany Holocaust victims along with the U.N. Human Rights Committee have demanded that the pig farm be abolished.

At the commemorative act for Romany Holocaust victims today, Sobotka said the tens of million crowns that would be needed to close the pig farm and to build a new one should be spent on different purposes such as education of Romany children and improvement in life conditions in socially excluded localities, primarily inhabited by Romanies. The ceremony was attended by about 100 people.
„I do not have any good feeling from the discussion only being reduced to the question of the pig farm standing nearby,“ Sobotka said. „I think that we should speak about more important things, such as a latent racism that is still present in Czech society, time and time again surfacing,“ Sobotka said. He said the question of the pig farm was very complicated as this was a holding owned by the AGPI Pisek company. The solution would demand large investments, Sobotka said. „I would prefer the money to flow to the education of Romany children, to be devoted on the improvement of social conditions in socially excluded localities because there is not enough money,“ he added. „I can understand the outrage of the people who have come here. This is not a simple affair. So far, none of the governments have been able to come to terms with the problem,“ Sobotka said.

„I do not want to start any confrontation. Sobotka seems to feel deep in his heart that the pig farm should not be here,“ Romany organiser of the commemorative act Cenek Ruzicka said. Almost all of Ruzicka’s family died in the Holocaust. Ruzicka showed a pond near the camp to Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) where Romany women were forced to wash naked, while the warders sexually abused them.

Source: Prague Post
Date: 10.05.2014

Antiziganistische Übergriffe, Fundstücke, Posts in English, Slowakei

Slovakia: Three suspects in beheading case of Romani man now on trial

Daniel Horváth was 37 years old and the father of a five-year-old girl when his murderers first beat him up and then chopped off his head while he was still alive. The case of his brutal murder is now before a court in Slovakia. The tragedy occurred two days before Christmas in 2012. The murder was committed in the village of Žihárec, not far from the town of Šala. News server TN.cz reports that two youths and the father of one of them are behind the shocking crime. Mr Horváth’s girlfriend had her first opportunity to come face-to-face with his brutal murderers during the trial. According to the indictment, the perpetrators beheaded her boyfriend while he was still alive. The Romani man was first brutally beaten up by them in a pub in Žihárec. The 40-year-old owner of a local bar, who is also a butcher by trade, his 18-year-old son, and his son’s 19-year-old friend transported Mr Horváth by wheelbarrow into the garden, where they used a meat cleaver to separate his head from his body while he was still alive. They then threw the body parts into a cesspool. Two days later, when they knew police were looking for Mr Horváth, they removed his corpse and his head from the cesspool, put them in a barrel, and drove them by car 25 km away to the town of Šoporňa. They hid the body and head in a shaft in an abandoned slaughterhouse. The butcher’s son, Atila, initially testified that his father had cut off Mr Horváth’s head. In court, however, he took all the blame, claiming to have committed the murder.

Now the father, who was suspect number one at the start of the trial, has surprisingly been released from custody. He reportedly left the country and is in the Netherlands. The next hearing in the trial will be on 15 May. Should the men be found guilty, they could serve 25 to life. No one knows why the trio slaughtered their victim in such a brutal way. One year ago, the father of the 19-year-old involved in the murder said he had behaved as if nothing had happened all during Christmas: „Neither I nor my wife noticed anything unusual about him,“ the father admitted.

Source: Romea.cz
Date: 01.04.2014

Analyse und Kritik des Antiziganismus, Antiziganismus auf politischer Ebene, Antiziganistische Übergriffe, Fundstücke, Posts in English, Staatlicher Antiziganismus, Ukraine

Ukraine: Police brutality targeting Romani people

At first, just like the vast majority of Ukrainians, Romani people in Ukraine experienced euphoria. They believed better times would come after the toppling of Yanukovych’s thieving regime. Now the sobering up has begun. Ukrainian national pride is being turned against Romani people there in the form of discrimination, harassment, and violent actions on the part of the police and their nationally-conscious assistants. Miroslav Horvát, a Romani activist from Uzhgorod and journalist with a local television station there, has reported about these incidents through his personal social networking page. The most recent anti-Romani provocation took place 10 days ago on 15 March in the village of Velika Dobroň in Uzhgorod district. A concert by the popular Romani singer Notar Mary was being given at the local Sting cultural club in the village. Romani people from all over the district planned to attend and chartered several buses to take them there. An unpleasant surprise awaited them at the scene. Several well-muscled youths stood at the entrance to the club and practiced their own peculiar band of racist identity checks.

The bouncers only let in ethnic Ukrainians. „We are not letting Roma inside,“ was their curt explanation. Local Romani activists called the incident a clear violation of their fundamental human rights and a display of ethnic intolerance. Recently such incidents have increased in Ukraine. „Discrimination against Romani people must stop before it is too late. We cannot permit them to refuse to let us go to a concert by a Romani singer, of all people, just because of our skin color,“ said a witness to the incident in video footage posted to the social networking site. „Hatred against Romani people is growing. Whatever we do, wherever we go, we’re just dirty Gypsies to them. In Chop, where I live, it’s gone so far they won’t let Romani people ride on public transport. They shout at us that we’re out of luck, they will only transport whites,“ an activist says in the footage. Continue reading Ukraine: Police brutality targeting Romani people →