Daily Archives: May 23, 2015

News Americas News Eastern Europe

Rroma offer guided tours of Budapest 8th District

Published by:

Budapest’s 8th district seldom features in guidebooks. While the buildings were once grand and beautiful, they are now dilapidated and gritty. The neighbourhood is mostly Rroma, with a high level of unemployment, and is reputed for crime and prostitution.

Rroma are now offering guided tours through the neighbourhood to show the other facets of this part of town, including sights such as the Jewish cemetery, but also much more simply, the fairly normal if often poor normality of this part of town.

News Western Europe

Norway: Children at risk of foster care

Published by:

A report by the Council of Europe Human Right Commissioner, Nils Muižnieks, claims that a quarter of Norwegian Rroma children in Olso are in or at risk of being put in foster care. Upon more careful reading, one finds that 60 children are in, and another 60 are at risk of being put in foster care. So all in all 120 children, which, if this is true, means there are 460 Rroma children in Oslo. Who knows … It would be better to say the exact numbers instead of clamouring some phony eye catching headline which is obviously not correct.

Belgium News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Slovakia

Homeless Slovak Rroma in Brussels

Published by:

The story of the few homeless Rroma in Brussels (we reported on it), is drawing lots of attention in the Belgian press and now also in the Slovak one. Even the European Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák stepped into the fray and stated that “We provide assistance to all of our citizens that approach us with a request for help, but this wasn’t the case in this instance.”

Lots is made of a few isolated cases, and the Rroma who migrated and integrated are barely mentioned. Again, only stereotyped views of the Rroma are pushed by the press.

Hungary News Eastern Europe

Jobbik mayor accused of forcing Rroma out

Published by:

The far-right Jobbik mayor of Ózd, in north-east Hungary is currently being accused of forcing poor Rroma resident out of their homes. He did change the housing regulations making it easier to evict “undesirable”, read Rroma, tenants.

Bosnia Croatia Kosovo News Eastern Europe Serbia

IDPs in Serbia

Published by:

According to the UNHCR, 21 thousands internally displaced (IDPs) Rroma live in utter poverty and a third of them live in buildings not intended for housing. These Rroma were mostly displaced during the Wars between Serbia and Croatia as well as during the Bosnian conflict and the Kosovo war.

Hungary News Eastern Europe

Hungarian Human Resource Minister Balogh and Rroma Holocaust

Published by:

Zoltan Balogh, the Hungarian Human Resource Minister, gave a speech on the Rroma Resistance Day (the day commemorating the uprising of Rroma in Auschwitz on May 16, 1944), and had to apologise for his remarks last August where he actually stated that no Rroma had been deported from Hungary – a lie. At least now it is somewhat official.

Holocaust in Hungary is still not widely acknowledged, especially the fact that most Jews in the countryside were deported as early as 1941 to extermination camps, and this on Hungarian initiative. Rroma were also constantly deported to Auschwitz and other camps.

Czech Republic Hungary News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Romania

Fighting school segregation

Published by:

An interesting article on the various ways to fight school segregation in the case of Rroma in Europe. School segregation is too often still the norm, especially in Hungary, Slovak and the Czech republic, as well as in Romania.

Finland News Western Europe

Law Case in Finland and Rroma

Published by:

A case of abduction, sequestration and rape where a young Rromni was abducted by a Rrom and his daughter, forced to have sex – having 4 children in the process, and finally being freed after several years is raising controversy in Finland. The reason: the mild verdict ( 3 years and ten months for the father, 2 years and 8 month for the daugher), which according to the press was due to the fact that they are Rroma, the father having claimed this was culturally ok among Rroma, as the abducted girl was de-fact his wife according to custom.

Finnish Rroma (so-called Kaale) countered that the deed was in no way condoned by the community nor was it the result of cultural traits. They also criticised the debate in the press.

Follows an extensive debate about culture and law… Fact is, Rroma culture doesn’t condone such acts, by far. Contrary, this would have resulted traditionally in the total exclusion of the Rrom from the community. Unfortunately, some of these traditions are getting lost, in part due to the pentacostal influence and other assimilation factors.

rroma.org
en_GBEnglish (UK)
de_DEDeutsch fr_FRFrançais en_GBEnglish (UK)