A comparison of the fate of Roma and Jews in the UK as viewed from an English Romni.
Anti-poverty projects have apparently helped “thousands” of Roma find jobs or enrol their children in kindergartens. Up to 64 million euros were handed out in seven years. 150 villages were helped. Improvement can be seen somewhere, but there are also villages where the aid system is failing.
Well, frankly, this amounts to 61’000 Euro per village and per year. What did they expect?
Hungary was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for the segregation of Roma in the education system and has been asked to provide a plan to remediate this.
It is doubtful whether Orban and his government will comply. Segregated schools are common in Hungary for Roma.
The number of cases of discrimination and racism against Sinti and Roma in Germany has never been so high. This is really bad.
Another article that reinforces the usual clichés about Roma. This time about a Kalderaša family in Germany.
Who are the Roma? Well, definitively not what this newspaper writes. This is a concentrated collection of stereotypes that do not apply to the overwhelming majority of Roma.
They say: Many travel, formerly in carriages, now in cars and caravans, in search of work. They live and dress traditionally, the women for example in colourful, long skirts.
The civic association “Lavuta” with the support of the Fund for the support of the culture of national minorities Kult Minor is organiing a series of cultural and educational events in elementary schools about the Roma Holocaust in the Banskobystrica region.
From March 31, two open-air exhibitions will be open to visitors on the Market Square in Nakło in central Poland: “The Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Europe” and “The Holocaust of the Roma from Wyrzysk County”.
“The Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Europe” is an exhibition prepared by the Institute of National Remembrance and made available by the Institute of National Remembrance Regional Office in Bydgoszcz.
The exhibition “Extermination of the Roma from Wyrzysk Poviat” was prepared by the Museum of Krajeńskie Land on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of the Roma to the Birkenau concentration camp.
A new radio documentary presents the life of 4 young Romnja in Ireland.
Bishop of Kielce Jan Piotrowski in the company of the Latin Metropolitan of Lviv, Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki visited the parish of St. John Paul II in Lviv and the nearly hundred refugees who live there.
Despite the language barrier, Bishop Piotrowski also talked with Roma children studying in the parish school “Alav” (meaning “word”) organized for them, which, together with the parish priest, Fr. Grzegorz Draus, they sang their own original parish anthem and in Polish “Zielony Mosteczek”. It was a testimony to the success of students who speak Russian and Ukrainian, as well as Hungarian or Romani, on a daily basis.
Latest statistics on whom the Poles like and dislike. Unfortunately, no surprise that nearly 50% of the Poles dislike Roma. What is surprising, is that Roma are only in 4th position, after Russians, Arabs, and Byelorussians (in that order)…
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According to the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Slovakia must take the necessary measures to eliminate discrimination and segregation of Roma children in education.
The annual report of Amnesty International Slovakia (AIS) for the year 2022 states that in 2022, systemic discrimination against Roma continued in Slovakia. Roma children are systematically denied the right to education and protection from discrimination in primary education. Investigations into inappropriate use of police force are insufficient.
The Andalusian Gitanos Sociocultural Centre, in collaboration with the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Granada, is organising a Workshop on Health and the Gitanos Community. It aim is to make the students of the Faculty aware of the values of the Gitanos culture, the socio-sanitary situation and the idiosyncrasies of this group.
The contents of the Workshop will deal with:
– History and cultural values of Gitanos.
– Current situation of the Roma community.
– Experiences of Roma men and women in the health field.
The fight for compensation for Roma women who were illegally sterilized lasted over 18 years. Although the compensation law has been in force since January 2022, the officials of the Ministry of Health make decisions slowly and arbitrarily, according to the victims and their representatives. Even the woman, whose medical documentation directly states her Roma origin as the reason for the sterilization, was not granted the compensation of 300,000 kroner until her second attempt.
In an open letter to the Czech Health Minister, NOGs stated that “261 applications were submitted and 74 were decided. However, only 35 applications were successful.” In violation of the law, the officials’ decision-making was delayed several times.
The chief prosecutor of the Plovdiv Region, in South Eastern Bulgaria ordered garbage containers to be placed in the Roma neighbourhood of Stolipinovo, one of the largest Mahala in the country. They inspected the neighbourhood and found numerous illegal landfills in the area.
By order of the District Prosecutor’s Office the municipality has been notified to take immediate action and prepare a plan with a view to ensuring normal living conditions in the neighbourhood.
The so-called “Hungarian” Roma have lived in France since the end of the 19th century. From the article, it is not clear from which group they are, but they are most probably Lovara.
By classifying them as “gens du voyage” as soon as they continue to circulate in caravans, the administration obliges them to live in “reception areas” often located near polluted industrial areas. Through a caravan ethnography, the anthropologist Lise Foisneau describes their attachment to places, the invisible traumas of the Second World War, the transmission of memory. But also the police and administrative hunt, and the search for places to stop. Despite the persecutions of the 20th century and the increasing privatization of public space, these companies have been constantly reconfiguring their worlds for 150 years. Lise Foisneau’s book Kumpania: living and resisting in gadjo country describes its flesh and vivacity.
More news this week in France about Roma. The Abbé Pierre Foundation and the Romeurope National Human Rights Collective lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor following the eviction of a shantytown occupied by Roma in Villeron (Val-d’Oise), on February 5, 2023. It is in addition to the five others already submitted by three members of the Roma community, the association La Voix des Rroms and the Mrap.
In Lyon, around 20 Roma were expulsed. In Aix, a fire broke out in a Roma camp. In Marseilles, another camp is threatened with closure. And finally, three Romnja are arrested in Western France for having stolen elderly people.
The city of Munich decides to realize a work of art that gives the history and present of the Sinti and Roma a voice in the city centre and brings the culture of remembrance to life. With a large majority, the general assembly of the city council now voted in favour of the implementation of a permanent, participatory art project by the artist Ladislava Gažiová on the Frauenplatz. The victims of the systematic persecution and murder during the Nazi regime are remembered and the current life of the Sinti and Roma in Munich is made visible. In this way, the city also wants to counteract the discrimination that still exists.
The Bulgarian police raised several mahala (Roma settlements) in Bulgaria in Plovdiv, Kazanlak, Gurkovo etc. They were searching for drugs, but also vote buying and other offences.
A description of the dire situation in Roma settlements in Hungary: Poverty, unemployment, and not running water.
It hasn’t improved in the last 20 year at all, on the contrary.
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