Daily Archives: December 20, 2013

News Eastern Europe News Switzerland News Western Europe Poland

20.12.2013 Undifferentiated Coverage of the Grandchildren Trick Scam and Rroma

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Ruch (2013) reports about a Polish Rroma clan who is allegedly behind the rising cases of so-called Grandchildren scam in Switzerland. The otherwise analytical report misses the critical use of ethnic categories. Instead, the popular public image of a mafia-like, hierarchical Rroma clan is dished, which stand behind the criminal offenses. Due to the indiscriminate attribution ofethnicity, Ruch feeds the idea of a culturally conditioned delinquency among Rroma. He states, “behind the vast majority of grandchildren trick in the German-speaking lands one finds the same group of offenders. A widely branched, Polish-German Roma family which earlier sold worthless carpets as expensive Oriental rugs and therefore stood in the crosshairs of investigators. In 1999, they probably invented the grandson trick scam in Poland, which they perfected successfully until today. The several hundred members of the clan are professionally organized according to the police. They operate literally call center and earn so well with this trick that they can afford a lavish lifestyle with expensive sports cars and extravagant family celebrations”. From Ruch’s article, it is not clear that there is no direct relationship between ethnicity and the offenses described. Instead, a cultural explanation is presented, an explanation that needs no further discussion because it is justified by itself. Such a reasoning is racist. Most Rroma are integrated citizens who are never named in the media. Unfortunately, journalists like André Ruch are still not aware of this.

Other Swiss newspapers such as the NZZ (2013) wrote uncommented that the perpetrators are mostly belonging to a Polish Roma clan.

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Right-Wing Radicals Indicted in Salzburg for Incitement

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Twelve people from the region Pognau were indicted by the Court for Constitutional Protection for hate speech. In early September of 2013, the individuals in question had called for action against travelling Rroma who legally stayed next to the ski jump in Bischofshofen. They threatened them both verbally and physically, and on the internet, called for the final solution against the Rroma. The possible punishment is of up to two years in prison (Salzburg24 2013, Salto, 2013).

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Right-Wing Populists and Rroma

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The Mirror (2013) examines the role of right-wing populist parties in Europe in terms of a recently published study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The authors call for moderate parties to take action against the increasing radicalization of politics. They determined five key conditions that favour the renewed rise of national populist parties: “1. A critical mass of unbound and disappointed voters is available. 2. Immigration and European criticism are the determining issues of public debate. 3. Major media are open to extremely shortened and radically intensified representations of immigration and European issues. 4. The institutional conditions of the electoral system are favourable for rapid success of new parties. 5. There is a charismatic leader and / or “political entrepreneurship”” (Grabow / Hartleb 2013). The Rroma are particularly affected by the policies of these national populist parties like the Front National or Fidesz. The parties build their programs on rigorous order policies that are designed to buikd and increase barriers between people. They thus endanger the peaceful coexistence between people and hamper a holistic implementation of democratic principles of equality.

Germany News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Minute of Silence at the Rroma Murdered in Germany

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The Bundesrat of Germany commemorated this week with a minute of silence to the Rroma murdered under the Nazis. Around 500,000 Rroma, some estimates put the number significantly higher, fell victim of the genocide of the fascist regime. Germany discussed this year in details the possible consequences of the “Poverty immigration” from South Eastern Europe, and the Rroma were at the centre of the debate. A lot of non-objective and polemical statements were made about them but the historical guilt of Germany towards Rroma was rarely addressed: “”It is a humanitarian imperative that we never forget this genocide,” said the President of the Bundesrat, Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD), on Thursday in the Bundesrat in Berlin. It was the “collective failure of an entire generation.” The Bundesrat remebers every year the so-called Auschwitz Decree by the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler. T On December 16th, 1942 he ordered the deportation of members of certain ethnic groups in the concentration camp of Auschwitz –Birkenau”  (Greenpeace Magazine, 2013).

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Romania

20.12.2013 Manuel Valls Acquitted in Racism Indictment

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Manuel Valls was acquitted by a French Court of the charge of racism (Le Monde 2013). The movement against racism had filed a lawsuit against Valls after he had publicly stated that Rroma have an extremely different lifestyle to the French, and had the habit of returning to Romania and Bulgaria. The court justified its decision with the reasoning that Valls’ statements were made in connection with a debate over the public interest and were not racist in the choice of words. The Court thereby ignores the role of intellectual arson and the power of derogatory cultural attribution to the public. A conviction would have been a sign of a more tolerant society, where defamatory statements do not fall under the category of freedom of expression. The court stated: “il n’apparaît pas [que ces propos] excèdent les limites admissibles de la liberté d’expression”  [It does not seem that these statements exceed the admissible limits of the freedom of expression] (Libération 2013).

 

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Jean-Marie Le Pen Sentenced for Defamation of Rroma

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The founder of the conservative party “Front National”, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was sentenced by a Paris court to a fine of 5000 euro. Le Pen referred to Rroma at a party meeting of the National Front as a natural thieves: “Roma would “naturally fly like birds ” – the French word “voler” means both “fly” and “steal”” Le Pen statements are symptomatic of a variety of prejudices against Rroma that are stubbornly maintained and which promote their exclusion (Spiegel, 2013, Les Observateurs 2013).

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Freedom of Speech, Political Correctness or Intellectual Arson?

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Vanneste (2013) argues in his article against too much political correctness in dealing with ethnic appurtenance. He argues for one to be able to express onself fully about everything, everything else is an unreasonable suppression of the freedom of speech. However, he forgets that political correctness shows not only verbal respect for the dignity of other people, but also to the effective position of these people in the society. Verbal defamation and undifferentiated reports encourage and promote the exclusion of ethnic minorities such as the Rroma as they consolidate and preserve prejudices.

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 France: Policy of Isolation or Cooperation?

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Christian Vanneste (2013), a politician of the conservative UMP, argues in Les Observateurs against a liberal foreign policy for France. He takes a statistic about the crimes committed by foreigners in 2012 offenses as an opportunity to advocate a rigorous segregation policy. The number of illegal migrants living in France Rroma is already alarmingly high: 15,000, or perhaps three times as many. With its radical planning policy, Vanneste is opposed to any forward-looking society in which people of all backgrounds coexist peacefully with each other. Instead, he argues flimsily for foreclosure policies. The fact that there is no culture of delinquency seems far from clear to him. Instead he criminalises people who are affected by poverty and exclusion: “Il y a 10% d’immigrés en France, et 18% d’étrangers parmi les détenus de nos prisons. Qu’il y ait un lien entre insécurité et immigration est une évidence. Il y en a deux autres : il est nécessaire de limiter l’immigration au minimum et l’on ne peut absolument pas compter sur l’Europe actuelle pour nous y aider”. [There are 10% of immigrants in France and 18% amongst the prison population. That there is a link between insecurity and immigration is obvious. There are two others: It is necessary to limit immigration to a minimum and one absolutely cannot count on current Europe to help us.]

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Education crisis among Rroma in France?

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Kinne (2013) gives information on a creeping crisis in the Paris suburbs: According to his article, just 10 % of Rroma children living in a illegal or informal camp go to school. The majority of South Eastern Europe originating Rroma who live in a makeshift barracks and camps prefer this to the poverty and discrimination in their home countries. This perspective of events should give pause to the vehement opponents of Rroma. According to a French government report says the author, about a third of Rroma children who live in theses camps, are not enrolled in school: “Aaccording to a government report, in the entire country, only one third of Roma children living in illegal camps go to school. Even though all children aged six to 16 years who live in France are required to attend school. The rest falls through the net, never registers or fails because of the high barriers to enrolment. Families have, for example, to specify a fixed address. Impossible, if you live in an illegal camp.” Besides the problem of the missing address, there are official reservations about Rroma, as well as the danger of being evicted in the near future from one’s current place of residence. Then there is the fear of many parents that their children could be discriminated against in schools. Without a good education, it will not be easier for the next generation to break the vicious circle of poverty and exclusion. That should make us think. On the other hand, there are also quite well-integrated Rroma in France, which are completely ignored in the current debate. They should have a voice.

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

20.12.2013 Duisburg and the myth of the Romany clans

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Unzensuriert.at, the right-wing populist platform (2013) railed in a recent contribution against the Rroma in Duisburg. The decision of the city government that not all Rroma who are affected by a the eviction from the house to be provided alternative housing is a gradual recognition of right-wing populist demands (cf. Fischer 2013). The one-sided article is clearly in the line of the fear of foreign infiltration of and dishes out the absurd notion of mobile Rroma clans who settle on one place like a swarm of locusts: “The Socialist City Council expects that the Roma clans, if one renders them the conditions in Duisburg as uncomfortable as possible and puts them in front of the door, will then just move on as far as possible. And there is no contingency plan for homeless Roma to be implemented in Duisburg, just to give them no incentive to remain there. In future, the new Apartment Supervision Act is meant to prevent new poverty migrants from Southeast Europe to immigrate in droves.”

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