Monthly Archives: November 2022

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine, the War, and Roma

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This is not good in any way: Articles in the Ukrainian press about Roma being arrested while trying to cross the border illegally to Hungary. In each of the cases at hand, this concerned young men or even conscripts. This is bad as it gives the impression that Roma are not pro-Ukrainian, which is far from the reality, and even in one case, that they help people fleeing conscription.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and Roma Ghettoes

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According to the Atlas of Roma Communities from 2019, up to two-thirds of Slovak Roma (300,000) live in segregated settlements outside or on the outskirts of villages, but also on a single street, in an apartment building or in a housing development within villages. In general, those settlements that are further away from the villages are in a worse condition. According to some experts, the settlements must disappear if the Roma from this environment are ever to integrate into society. “There is a lot of scientific evidence that segregation and ghetto life are incompatible with social integration,” says Marek Hojsík, who monitors Roma integration policies in EU states at the Central European University in Budapest.

However, settlements are not actually disappearing, but expanding. If a municipality or city with a Roma settlement builds apartments for Roma, according to SME findings, this happens directly in the settlements.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia and Minorities

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The interesting story of a Slovenian village, Dobrovnik,  where Slovenes are the minority and where Hungarians and Roma are present. During the local mayoral and local elections, there are three electoral commissions, and as many as seven ballots were in front of the voters. Ironically, the village will have to elect a Slovene minority representative in the village administration, a unique case in Slovenia.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Ticking Bomb?

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An incendiary article about the “ticking Roma social bomb in Dolenjsko”. In Brief, the mayors of this region of Southeastern Slovenia complain that the central government is not doing enough, and that effectively, the situation deteriorates. So far so good, but these mayors also hold Roma responsible for a large part of the problem, saying they are not sending their children to school, do no efforts, and generally tend to be criminals. They had petitioned the government earlier in the year to harden the delivery of social help to Roma.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Extremism and Attacks Against Roma

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The most frequent victims of extremist attacks in the physical world in 2020 and 2021 were members of the Roma ethnic group. This is stated in the Monitoring Report on the State of Extremism in the Slovak Republic for the period of 2020 and 2021 and the update of the tasks of the Concept of Combating Radicalization and Extremism until 2024.

The material states that right-wing extremism is the most dominant form of extremism on the territory of the Slovak Republic, while it represents on average up to 97.4 percent of all cases of criminal prosecution for crimes of extremism.

The international Engage project consisting of a team of social psychologists from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and experts from partner organizations from Hungary and Spain presented ways to better the attitudes of the majority towards the Roma. In this regard, they recommend expanding mutual contact between the Roma and non-Roma populations.

News Eastern Europe North Macedonia

Tetovo – North Macedonia and Multiple Languages

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In Tetovo, North Macedonia, it is better to be able to speak the languages ​​of its neighbours: Albanian, Macedonian, Turkish, Romanes or Serbo-Croatian. This mutual knowledge is the basis of social and professional relations. And the Roma are, as often, the champions of multilingualism!

Tetovo is certainly one of the most multicultural cities in North Macedonia. According to the last census in 2021, it has 84,770 inhabitants, including 60,460 Albanians, 15,529 Macedonians, 1,885 Roma, 1,746 Turks, 256 Serbs, 189 Bosniaks and eleven Vlachs.

Many speak several languages ​​in addition to their own, so they can communicate with neighbours and friends from other communities. In the streets of Tetovo, one hears Macedonian, Albanian, Romanes, Turkish or Serbo-Croatian. The Roma community is the most multilingual, perhaps because its children cannot be educated in their mother tongue in Tetovo and have to attend lessons in Macedonian, Albanian or Turkish.

Nezir Huseini, for example, speaks the languages ​​of all the communities of Tetovo. In addition to Romanes, he speaks Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian, but also English and German. “Romanes is my mother tongue, but I speak Albanian because I studied it in primary school. I always spoke Macedonian and Turkish and, as I studied in a military academy in Belgrade, during the time of Yugoslavia, I improved my Serbo-Croatian. Finally, I learned English and German, which I speak, read and write fluently,” he explains.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Not much this week, which is always good. An extended family in Uzès, in the South is looking for a new place to stay after nearly 9 years in the same camp; a new camp being set up near Nantes and resulting protests; near Geneva, a mayor tries to find lodging for Roma; and finally, France being pointed out for racism by the UNO.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany: Condemned

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The district court of Neumünster sentenced the operator of a fitness studio to a one thousand Euros fine and thus agreed with Kelly Laubinger, a Sintica from Neumünster. She had suspected that she was denied membership of the fitness studio because of her last name – Laubinger which is a name that many Sinti bear. She hopes that her recent court victory will encourage others to take action against inequality.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Roma Mayors

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Slovakia: Roma Mayors

A record number of Roma mayors won in the municipal elections. In the next election period, there will be 52 of them.

For comparison – in 2010, there were only 12 of them. Despite the growing number, Roma are only slowly getting involved in local government affairs.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Forced Sterilisations

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The scandalous reluctance of the Ministry of Health to compensate victims of forced sterilizations is reflected in the still deeply rooted racism in Czech society.

The Association of Women Victims of Illegal Sterilization has been fighting for compensation for affected women for several decades. Romnja were sterilized because they are Romani. Compensation for this is hampered by some officials for the same reason.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic: Discrimination in Education

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Marek Tatar (28), a Czech Rom, is currently studying transcultural communication in his third year at the Faculty of Education in Hradec Králové and works as a programmer in IT. Hi path to higher education was not smooth. He faced bullying in elementary school, overheard a conversation between two of his teachers in the school corridor about the fact that they didn’t want a gypsy at school, which prompted him to stop his studies. Fortunately, he was convinced by his family to do at least the minimum, which allowed him later to start studies.

It shows how discrimination and racism early on can disadvantage children from minorities for their entire lives. Fortunately, there are also example like him.

News Western Europe Spain

Cadix: The Day of the Andalusian Gitanos

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The Delegation of Ethnic Minorities presented a program for the Day of the Andalusian Gypsies. The Andalusian Roma Day, is celebrated on November 22.

Germany News Western Europe

The Press and Roma

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The German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung – short FAZ – was forced to remove a picture on one of its articles after critique from the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma.

In FAZ’ November 1st issue, a photo showing a mountain of rubbish on Gutleutstrasse in Frankfurt am Main was used to illustrate the report “Fighting environmental crime more effectively”. In the caption, the focus was set on the Roma minority, although this had no relation to the text next to it. Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma commented: “Here a global crime is highligheted and the selection of images conveys that the Roma minority is involved in these environmental crimes through street garbage.” On Tuesday, the FAZ exchanged the picture for a photograph of EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius. Below the text, the addition was added: “This article appeared at times with an image that was not appropriate to the topic. We changed the illustration.”

This highlights how choices of pictures in articles in the press convey and further existing stereotypes regarding Roma.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Sterilisations

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Some comments to the recent judgement denying a Romni compensation for forced sterilisations even though the medical record indicates that the reason was she was Romani. The Czech Human Right Commissioner reacts.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Discrimination

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Czech Republic and Discrimination

An interview with dental hygienist Daniela Patkaňová. For years she has been working as a dental hygienist in one of the facilities in Prague. It originally comes from Svidňik, Slovakia. Her journey to the dentist’s office was far from straightforward. She started in the field of sales, went to the Czech Republic for work and later also to Great Britain. It was there that she completed her education and started as a dental nurse. Although she encountered rejection in the areas of housing and employment because of her Roma status, she did not give in. What was decisive for her was the meeting with associate professor Mariá Bartoňová, with whom she still works.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Ljubljana’s Mayor and Racism

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Zoran Janković, the current mayor of Ljubljana, Slovenia, is trying to be re-elected for the fifth time in a row and also to get a majority in the city council to govern. He is however involved in a controversy about the burial of Roma from Ižan, victims of the Nazis and of the Partisans in Ljubljana’s cemetery. He is opposing the burial and has now been officially accused of racism by the Assembly for the Republic who published a harsh statement: By not burying the Roma from Ižan, he showed a level of racism hitherto unknown in Ljubljana, that he despises the sanctity of life by abusing cemeteries, that he incited intolerance and hatred with his political appearances.

Germany News Western Europe

Sachsenhausen: Exhibition

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Adolescents and younger adults from different countries, among them descendants of former prisoners, dealt with the history of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and with the question of how it can be remembered today and how the victims can be commemorated in artistic workshops. The results can be seen from Saturday.

The focus of the artistic interventions are the perspectives of the participants on today’s memorial and the question of which stories are missing. For example, the commemoration of Sinti and Roma, the memory of Spanish prisoners or also of female prisoners who had to work as forced prostitutes are discussed. The exhibition is interactive. Each work of art poses a question to the viewer and invites them to make their own statement.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine and Roma

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An article in the German press on Roma in the Ukraine. As usual, the focus lies on Transcarpathia and, together with Bessarabia, represent an exception regarding to the situation of Roma in the Ukraine. In those two regions, the situation is really bad, with ghettoes and unemployment. But in places where the majority of Roma are Xaladytka and Servi, the situation is very different.

This is almost never presented in the press.

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