In spite of the picture, and in spite of the beliefs, not all poor people in Hungary are Rroma. Unicef claims 620 thousand children live below the poverty line. This is many more children as the Rroma minority, which all in all numbers ca. 800 thousands.
Note that three million Hungarian are now below the official poverty line.
Serbia wants to extend the so-called “Roma Decade” by another 10 years to continue furthering integration of Rroma in Europe. In a meeting organized by the Roma Education Center, Ivanisevic said that the Roma Decade will change: its seat will be in Sarajevo and the implementation will be placed under the Stability Pact for South East Europe.
In October 2012, a Rromni, Paraskevi Kokkoni was savagely beaten by local men in a context of racism and of attacks by rightist extremists against Rroma in that town. Three men were subsequently condemned to 8 months of jail and to a further suspended sentence of three further years.
A petition signed by 82’000 people was handed over to the Greek minister of the interior on March 6th. This petition urges Greece to act decisively against hate crimes.
Jacques Debot, a French blogger reporting on Rroma Stories, wrote a post on photographs and Rroma. In there, he bemoans the fact that the pictures that are taken all show the same view of Rroma: Poverty, alienation, despair. He wishes that other sides of Rroma could and should be shown, very much in the sense of the Chilean photographer Navarro Vega, who took more differentiated pictures of the poorest under the Pinochet dictature.
While we wholeheartedly support this point of view, we feel one needs to go further: Photographers, and the press in general, have a moral responsibility. They show part of the reality, the visible tip of the iceberg. But they never show the invisible ones, the large majority of Rroma. And thus, they distort the perceptions of this minority.
A controversy in the UK followed a ruling finding a politician guilty of racism and discrimination against Rroma. A British Rrom and a Green candidate to the elections says no politician is different from another in this matter, and that newspapers tend to cover such comments in a way that portrays them defending the order and the community against Rroma.
Travellers and Rroma represent a community that is non-negligible and are voters. But only 10% of them voted in the last elections. This article offers an interesting analysis of the reasons why and the ways in which this is currently changing.
Meanwhile, a small number of Rroma in France continues to grab the headlines. In the north, in Roubaix, Rroma and NGOs are fighting against eviction, while in St. Ouen, near Paris, some Rroma will be relocated in an “insertion village” a project meant to integrate Rroma.
In both cases, the press continues to portray Rroma as poor migrants from South Eastern Europe, travellers (see the pictures), and as difficult to integrate. This generalisation, as we have always said is actually racists. This concerns a small minority of the Rroma population in France.
The city of Duisburg produced a study that clearly shows that extreme rightists parties started using the theme of Rroma and how this is based on daily racism, enabled by the media and politics. The broschure can be downloaded freely.
The red-green coalition from Baden Württemberg will deport asylum seekers from Serbia and Macedonia, many of then Rroma, on the anniversary of the deportation of Rroma in that Region. This anniversary celebrated on the 24th of March commemorates the first train filled with Rroma and Sinti that departed from Offenburg.
What a date to choose …
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