Daily Archives: April 23, 2014

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23.04.2014“Ukrainian Roma Face Threats and Violence”

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Osipova/Ou (2014) report on threats and acts of violence against Ukrainian Rroma in Sloviansk, in the eastern Ukraine. Seven of about one hundred and fifty houses of Rroma families in Sloviansk were looted by armed men. A Rromni, Natasha Cheripovskaya, showed the journalists how the looting exactly took place. They were wearing masks and first shot at the windows, to spread fear. They asked for money and gold. Her family had to respond that they had neither gold nor money. The neighbours watched everything, also in a state of shock. Then the masked men ransacked the family’s flat. Cheripovskaya emphasizes that they had no problem with Russians or Ukrainians before the riots in the Ukraine. The young Rrom Pyotr Povolsky also expressed grave concerns over the events. They have many children here, he states. Out of fear they no longer sleep in the houses and no longer go into the city, although they have been living there since years. Minorities such as Rroma are regularly the victims in countries with political upheavals and the associated, unclear power relations.

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23.04.2014 Rudolf Sarközi urges European commissioner for the Rroma

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On the occasion of the forthcoming European elections, Rudolf Sarközi, chairman of the Austrian National Minority Advisory Council of the Roma, calls for a separate ethnic groups commissioner for Rroma and other minorities in the European Union. This commissioner should urge the EU member states to respect the rights of minorities and prescribe sanctions if needed: “For Sarközi it is “high time” that a male or female commissioner for minorities with a focus on ethnic groups, Roma and Sinti, as well as refugees that escape from worldwide crisis areas to Europe, is put in place. […] Thereby, a “permanent, political and societal solution for Roma and Sinti in Europe” could be found, he said in a statement” (Vienna online 2014). In an extensive interview with mokant.at, Sarközi explains his views on the current situation of the Rroma in Austria. He states a clear decline in discrimination since the official recognition of the Rroma minority and the attack of Oberwart in 1995. The tragedy caused a caesura in the Austrian society and created an awareness of the discrimination against the minority. As far as the culture of the Rroma concerns, Sarközi denies uniform characteristics that all Rroma share: “Is there a separate, unified culture of the Roma? This does not exist. Not even among the Austrian Roma people. Why? We live in different nation-states. Most Sinti belong to Germany and were influenced by this culture. We have adopted the culture, which is predominantly present in the country or the region. To select the German example: In Berlin, the Sinti or Rrom will be as Prussian as the Prussian, and in Bavaria as Bavarian as the Bavarians!” (Winterfeld 2014). One has to contradict him in one point, however. He denies that there are overarching traditions. These exist, even if the various groups practice them differently. The most Rroma speak Rromanes, going back to Sanskrit, they share many traditions. The statement that the Rroma belong to different religions, Sarközi is absolutely right. He moreover stresses how important it is that the majority population makes offers of integration, to the Rroma as well as other minorities. For without such a willingness to accept other people in a society, a positive integration – and not an assimilation – is very difficult to achieve. Sarközi also emphasizes the importance of education for a successful integration of the Rroma. After all, education increases self-confidence and social recognition.

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23.04.2014 Le Progrès publishes racist article about delinquent Rroma

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Several French newspapers report on an article, published by the regional newspaper Le Progrès, which assigns different types of offenses to various nationalities, including the Rroma. These are named directly in connection with petty crimes, prostitution, scrap metal theft and burglary offenses. That the Rroma are not a nationality but an ethnic group, Annie Demontfaucon (2014), the author of the article, seems to have forgotten. In France, statistics based on national origin are allowed, but not those that capture ethnic membership. Therefore, Le Progrès makes itself liable to prosecution with the infographics, as the attorney of La Voix des Roms confirms. SOS Racisme will file suit against the newspaper for illegal, ethnic profiling of Rroma. The same will be done by Licra (Ligue internationalle contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme), which stated that even the mention of national identity in the context of crime is far from unproblematic. A third lawsuit will be filed by the Movement against Racism MRAP (Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples). MRAP also raises the question of whether the sources of the article can be traced back to racist police statistics. But this question cannot be clearly answered: “For their sources, explains the chief editor, they simply contacted the offices of the police, the gendarmerie, and the customs authority, who communicated them the general trends, based on their observations and the arrests. The general trends therefore, but no official figures” (Metro News 2014). Christophe Soullez, head of the national observation post for delinquency and criminal justice (ONDRP), decidedly questions the quality and origin of the sources. While the ONDRP itself publishes statistics based on national affiliation, these only list perpetrators sentenced by the court and not conjectures on the membership of the actors. A link between ethnicity and crimes committed is clearly racist and illegal, he states. La Voix des Roms filed a complaint against an illegal, ethnic file a few years ago, with the name “Minorités Ethniques Non Sédentaires (MENS). Not surprisingly, on the side of the Front National, one praised the article of Le Progrès. Florian Philippot, vice-president of the National Front, announced that he thanked the newspaper that they showed the negative effects of immigration. The fact that this is a deeply biased and racist interpretation of the facts, the conservative nationalist politician cares little about (compare Conxicoeur 2014, Metronews 2014, Le Figaro 2014, Le Parisien 2014, Le Huffington Post 2014).

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23.04.2014 Free movement of workers: access to the labour market remains difficult

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Pastural (2014) reports – on the occasion of the European free movement of workers with Romania and Bulgaria since January 2014 – about possible improvements in the access of Rroma to the French labour market. However, this is not the case. The access to the labour market for the low-skilled Rroma workers remains very difficult: “Full of experience as a result of working in agriculture or construction in Greece and Italy, Ionut Nica waited impatiently for the end of the transitional arrangements, towards the access of Romanian nationals to the labour market of the Schengen area. Since January 2014, Ionut has the right to work. “There was a tremendous hope on the part of Mr. Nica, who expected this splendid date of the month of January as if it would change his whole life”, laments Florence Marrand, social worker at the medical-social establishment of the Conseil général of Puy-de-Dôme, who advises Ionut Nica regularly for a little over one year. “Today, he is deeply disappointed. Certainly, he was able to enrol at the job centre, he could enrol at the work-assistant mission, he was able to answers vacancies. But nothing has changed specifically, absolutely nothing…“ It is to hope that Pastural is wrong with his portrayal of two individual cases, and the inclusion of immigrant Rroma into the labour market will enhance. At the latest, when the effects of the economic crisis are finally gone. One problem is, according to Pastural, the lack of resources to improve ones qualifications, and thus the appeal for the labour market.

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23.04.2014 EU-minister Birgitta Ohlsson calls for more political commitment for the Rroma

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Herrnböck (2014) spoke with the Swedish EU-minister Birgitta Ohlsson about the commitment of the European Union on the Rroma integration. In the interview, Ohlsson criticizes in particular the role of Romania who is not willing to actively participate in a European Rroma task force. There is a lack of political will and administrative capacity to use EU funds effectively, she states. Ohllson wants to deploy a task force for the better integration of Rroma in Romania, even without the consent of the Romanian government: “I do not want to give up this idea, I have seen too many miserable Roma camps in different countries. It is unworthy to a modern society that children must seek their food in the garbage. […] I think it’s a litmus test for states how they treat minorities. The Union was built to never again allow a crime like the Holocaust. European politicians should oppose much stronger against intolerance and intimidation.” The main criticism of Ohlsson and other EU politicians is the lacking retrieval and use of EU-funds in Romania for the integration of the Rroma.

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