Daily Archives: August 27, 2014

News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

27.08.2014 Sweden: Textbook about the discrimination of the Rroma

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The Local (2014) reports on the plans of the Swedish government to create textbook about the discrimination of the Rroma in the country. The teaching material is supposed to be based on the white paper on the discrimination against Rroma in Sweden, which the government published this March. The white paper documented a largely ignored history of exclusion and marginalisation of the minority. In response to the negative findings of the investigation, a commission against Roma discrimination was initiated. It is now tasked with the realisation of the textbook: “On Thursday the government announced it had asked the commission to create school and teaching materials from the white book, to be used in all of Sweden’s secondary schools. “If we are going to fight the alienation of Roma that we see today, we must be aware of this dark history of abuse”, Ullenhag told newspaper Dagens Nyheter. The Swedish National Agency for Education, the Living History Forum, and the Roma discrimination ombudsman will collaborate to produce the school materials. Ullenhag said that Swedish students should already be learning about the history of Romani people in Sweden, but that the quality of available materials and information had been poor.” In November 2013, Sweden was in the headlines all over Europe because it became public that the police had created an illegal register with thousands of Rroma, which classified them as potential criminals solely because of their ethnicity.

Germany News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

27.08.2014 Stereotypes: Rroma gangs as con artists

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Weder (2014) of the Thurgauer Zeitung reports on a “Rroma clan” from Germany that is said to betray unsuspecting mostly elderly people out of tens of thousands of Swiss francs, by offering the cleaning or the sale of oriental rugs at exorbitant prices: “Their appearance is serious, friendly and courteous, their practices are audacious and ruthless. They pretend to be carpet experts, the police searches for them for fraud. They fool unsuspecting people, con huge amounts of money out of them and disappear without a trace. Their trick: they clean old oriental rugs and sell new – for supposedly unbeatable prices. In fact, the carpets are barely worth anything and the quality of the cleaning is more than questionable.” Behind the tricksters one suspects predominantly the “Goman-Clan”, a Rroma family from Leverkusen who is said to be specialised in this activity, as a representative he Canton police St. Gallen confirms. The offenses described here shall not be trivialised. It is a crime which must be punished. However, it is very problematic to explicitly address the ethnicity of the perpetrators and to present it as an explanation for criminal offenses. This suggests that the crimes are a cultural trait of the Rroma. Rroma are not more criminal than other ethnic groups. With this, one defames the majority of the respectable, integrated Rroma, which are not delinquent and one engages in intellectual arson, by sustaining a pejorative view of the minority. Moreover, the notion of hierarchically organised family gangs who commit crimes under the command of a clan chief has to be questioned. The idea of ​​hierarchical family goes back to the false assumption that Rroma have a strictly patriarchal family structure, with clear hierarchies and relationships of dependency. While it is true that the family has an important status among the Rroma, its organisation is largely egalitarian.

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

27.08.2014 Rroma settlement in Bobigny: controversy over planned eviction

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The French judges’ syndicate criticised the decision of Bobigny’s mayor to evict the local Rroma settlement in defiance of a judge’s decision from July the 2nd. The judgment rejected a request for eviction by the new mayor by referring to the fundamental rights to accommodation and family life and in recognition of the demands of the European Court of Human Rights. The mayoral decree refers to the allegedly precarious security situation in the settlement, whereby no judicial assessment is necessary. In early February this year, a little Rroma girl of the settlement in question had died, victim of a fire. The judges’ syndicate appraised the planned eviction as undermining of the judiciary: “Contacted by Metronews, the syndicate of judges condemns the strategy of sapping a court judgment: by acting this way, the mayor’s office “changes the judge”. “The mayor has the right to issue this decree and we do not know whether he has filed an appeal against the judge’s decision, which was made on July the 2nd, the syndicate explains, but this way he subverts a judgment.” The mayoral decree is already now controversial and will be studied by a new judge on Monday, as an emergency, at the administrative court of Montreuil at 14:30. “It will be interesting to see how he will judge” assures the syndicate which will observe the verdict with vigilance” (Bonnefoy 2014). For several years,  a debate has raged in France on how to deal with the informal settlements, built by Rroma immigrants. While many politicians from right to left are in favour of a rigorous eviction policy, individual exponents advocate long-term solutions, which aim at integrating the Rroma immigrants. Approximately 200 people live in the settlement of Bobigny. The organisation Ligue des droits de l’homme points out that the children of the camp attend local schools and would be the primary victims of a forced eviction (compare Breson 2014, Le Figaro 2014, Libération 2014). On the evening of August the 26th, it was announced that the administrative court of Montreuil endorsed the decree of the mayor. The settlement can therefore now be evicted at any time (France Bleu 2014, Mediapart 2014).  

News Switzerland

27.08.2014 Oberwinterthur: continuing conflict over transit site

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Herter (2014) spoke with Urs Glaus, president of the foundation “Future for Swiss Travellers”, about the continuing problems at the transit site of Oberwinterthur. The site was closed by the authorities on the weekend of August 23rd and 24th, due to the hygienic conditions which were unsustainable. The place is now being extensively cleaned and repaired. When and how it will be reopened is not yet decided (compare Eppenberger 2014, Hirsekorn 2014). Unfortunately, Glaus also spreads the opinion that some Rroma don’t use toilets for cultural reasons and that it would therefore be reasonable to establish separate sites for travelling Rroma. That problems with a minority of travelling Rroma are supposed to be solved by seggregated sites and not by an open dialogue is disconcerting. As Glaus himself states, there are only occasional travelling Rroma groups that cause problems on transit sites. Most of them adhere to the rules at the sites and stick to the hygiene standards. Therefore, Glaus demand for separate sites is difficult to comprehend. It means a concession to a nationalistic distinction between decent Swiss Jeniche and problematic “foreign” Rroma. However, disputes over transit sites and stands are a pan-Swiss problem, because there are by far not enough sites for all travellers. Due to the presence of foreign travellers, this problem is exacerbated and the competition degenerates in ethnic distinctions, which cannot be deemed to be objective. Foreign travelling Rroma are scapegoats in order to identify a clear culprit for all grievances. This does not do justice to the complexity of the problem. Most Rroma are sedentary anyway and don’t travel. Urs Glaus states: “Not all Roma leave dirty sites. But there are some groups that have a different cultural background, don’t use toilets for example, or do not want to be seen on the way to the toilet. Therefore, not all transit sites are suitable for the Roma, also the site in Oberwinterthur is not. […] Are shared sites for Swiss travellers and Roma conceivable? No, but this has nothing to do with discrimination, but with the different needs and experiences of Roma and Swiss travellers. Their origin and culture is different. In general, it is not end well if Roma want to stop on sites of Swiss travellers.” Of course there are differences between the Rroma and the Jeniche. But the demand for separate transit sites spreads false notions for the necessity of a segregation of the two groups, which cannot be in the sense of a modern, multi-ethnic society, which should rely on compromise and cooperation and not on isolation and separation.

Germany News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Serbia

27.08.2014 Migration policy in Lower Saxony: Rromni to be deported after 28 years

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Akdag (2014) reports on an absurd case of regulatory practices. The Romni Suzana S., who has been living in Lower Saxony for 28 years, is supposed to be deported to Serbia, along with her five children. Even after almost three decades, the single mother still has no residency permit: “Suzana S. is 32 years old and just like her children she was born in Germany. When she was five years old, Suzana lived with her parents in Serbia for four years, but she doesn’t speak any Serbian. Emsland is her home and for her children this applies anyway. “I feel like a German”, she says. […] “I do not know how to feed my children in Serbia. There, we will have to live on the street”, says S. She and her children are Roma. Many members of the minority in Serbia suffer from harassment by the authorities and are exposed to racist attacks by the population. S.’ advocate Jan Sürig was in Serbia and is aware of the situation: “Even today, Roma in Serbia live forcibly on the margins of society, often in inhumane conditions. They are discriminated against in virtually all levels of everyday life.” […] The many applications for a residence permit were rejected.” In early September, Serbia is supposed to be classified as a safe country of origin by the German Federal Assembly. Then, asylum applications based on discrimination will only have a very small chance of approval, as the official status is more important than individual experiences of discrimination. Akdag criticises in particular that the district of Emsland justified its decision with the explanation that Suzana S. didn’t actively attempt to integrate because she receives welfare. Her language skills and working efforts and the schooling of children were classified as irrelevant. Now, the family S. is trying to receive a residency permit by approaching the commission for hardship cases. What is particularly disconcerting about the described circumstances is that Suzana S. and her children do not speak Serbian, which means that in the case of a deportation to Serbia, they would be excluded more than ever. That immigration authorities did not consider this is hard to understand.

Germany News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Romania Spain

27.08.2014 Integration policy towards Rroma in Dortmund

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Völkel (2014) writes about the integration efforts of the Workers’ Welfare Association (AWO). The social workers of the AWO try to help immigrated Rroma in their integration efforts by assisting them in their search for housing, jobs, as well as with German language courses. Völkel states that since the AWO offers this support for free, conflicts arise with people smugglers who help the newcomers with agency appointments and different application procedures, in return for exorbitant prices. As a positive example, the journalist presents the family Ion-Lazar. The Rroma, originally from Romania, try to integrate successfully by all means: “As for instance Fabian Lazar-Ion (39) and his wife Anisoara (31). The two Romanians from Galati in the Moldavian region have gone to Spain nine years ago to work there. They fled from the lack of prospects, the hatred against Sinti and Roma and the discrimination in their homeland. In Spain, they were doing well. They learned Spanish and had both work and earned a living. But then came the economic crisis. “We couldn’t find work anymore”, states the father of two children. He heard from his sister Gabriela Lihcah that there was work in Dortmund. […] First, they searched unsuccessfully for work, housing, and some perspectives. Their life changed when they met Mirza. The street worker and the translator Tatiana-Iolanda Christea invited them for breakfast and showed them possibilities. […] Both have found mini-jobs or seasonal work. But it is financially not enough to move to another part of town, away from the drug trade and the so-called illicit worker district.” The article demonstrates successfully that reductionist notions of anti-social Rroma, not willing to integrate, are wrong. The portrayed Rroma, who fled from the economic crisis to Germany, just want to live a normal life and provide a good future for their children. Already now, 110,000 to 130,000 “invisible Rroma” are living integrated in Germany. Many of them have done so for several generations. They are the proof that an integration of the Rroma is possible without problems, if they are not actively prevented from it by marginalisation and discrimination.

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