Monthly Archives: March 2024

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czechia and School Segregation

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Two articles dwelling on what happened in the 16 years since the Czech Republic was condemned for school segregation and discrimination against Roma. There are still segregated school, and according to the Deputy Minister of Education Jiří Nantl (ODS), Czech society is thereby producing clients of the welfare state.

These schools should be closed, and desegregations should be enforced.

Greece News Western Europe

Greece: A Really Bad Article

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of Greeks involved in thefts and burglaries are Roma” and requires the state to deal with “the systemic delinquency of the Roma”.

He further says that “they used to be mostly vagrants, employed in seasonal agricultural work, basket weaving, petty trading and peddlers, almost all of them uneducated and with slight delinquency, mainly petty theft”.

So basically, all Roma are thieves since immemorial times.

Not a word about the segregation and racism, about the failure of the state to improve housing conditions and so on.

We will pass on the measures advocated by the article like police control of the slums etc.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland, Foreigners and Minorities

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Well, the results of a survey in Poland are unfortunately not surprising. The least liked people in Poland (in that order) are Byelorussians, Roma, and Russian.

Sad that a local minority is so badly recognised.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Paleta

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Every weekday in the morning slot from 10.05am on TV1 and replays at 4.10pm on TV2, Paleta brings pictures and words from life, stories about ordinary people, reports on events and processes important for the preservation of cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity in Vojvodina. Reports, life stories, information, documentary shows, events, problems and solutions…

One of the broadcasting languages is Romanes.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Child Abuse Case

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Canadian anthropology professor David Scheffel had been conducting research on child prostitution in Roma settlements in Slovakia since the revolution and was accused of sexual crimes. He spent 6 years in prison for a validly convicted act of sexual abuse and endangering moral education. And he is free with an electronic bracelet waiting for the next verdict in another case.

Now some of the witnesses are recanting.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Role Model

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Mechanical engineer and influencer Tomáš Csicsó, followed by more than 160’000 people, proves with his stories on social networks that Roma don’t have to end up in factories, but can have big dreams and ambitions, just like he had. He achieved success even though he grew up in poverty and encountered those who told him he would not make it.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Blank Racism

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Children on a train were verbally assaulted by older women from the majority. For example, the said: “Smelly Roma, they should look for a job and not go on trips.” The only one who stood up for them was the conductor, who warned the passengers not to make derogatory comments.

As part of the ZEBRA project, the “Cesta von” NGO organize activities and trips for teenage children from excluded environments. They want them to meet peers from the majority and broaden their horizons. These were children from this program.

Bad.

Greece News Western Europe

Greece: The “No one should be left behind” Project

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The project “Empowerment of young Roma women in matters of health, prevention and human rights” implemented as part of the Active citizens fund program sees Roma schoolgirls return to their camps and teach other women a great lesson about human rights, health and domestic violence.

17-year-old student Katerina Mukani from Zefyri was one of the students trained by experts to give a great lesson on human rights, health and domestic violence to the rest of the Roma women back in the camp where she lives. She says: “My daily life in Zefyri is boring and I feel trapped. I think a lot about my life after the Panhellenic Games, while many nights I dream of the moment when I will leave Athens, even far from Greece. Educating other Roma women helped me a lot to understand that my dreams and all of us are possible because we all deserve something better. None of us should be left on the sidelines.”

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland, Minorities, and Foreigners

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Americans, Italians and Czechs, as well as Slovaks, are the favorite nations of Poles. This was shown by a new public opinion poll, TASR took over the report from the Polish news agency PAP. Up to 65 percent of respondents in the CBOS survey expressed positive feelings towards Americans. They are followed in second place by the Italians with 63 percent, ahead of the Czechs (61 percent), Slovaks (60 percent) and the British (55 percent).

Poles have the most negative views of Russians (76 percent), Belarusians (47 percent) and Roma (43 percent).

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Uzhhorod Roma School

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The Czechoslovak president Masaryk contributed to the establishment of a should for Roma in what is now Transcarpathian Ukraine and before was the Ruthenian region of Czechoslovakia. The school was opened as an experiment to try to integrate Roma in the regular school system and Roma contributed to its creation. It was also a de-facto segregated school…

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Roma Education

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In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights, in a ground-breaking decision, condemned the Czech Republic for discriminating against Roma pupils in their access to education.

However, the Czech Republic continues to discriminate against Roma children in education in spite of this condemnation. Recent statistics show that 15% of Roma children are educated outside of the regular school system (i.e. special schools) whereas for the majority population, this is the case only for 3% of the children.

So there are still special schools in addition to at least 130 segregated ones.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Prague and Roma History

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Jana Kokyová, chairwoman of the Roma Holocaust Compensation Committee, recalled the tragic fate of the Roma and Sinti during the Holocaust at a memorial meeting in Prague-Ruzyn on the 11th of March. In her speech, she emphasized that almost 90% of the Czech Roma and Sinti were exterminated and that this chapter of history is still neglected. She pointed to personal family experiences with Nazism and expressed concern that history might repeat itself. She criticized the insufficient representation of Roma history in school curricula and called for the support of educational programs that would help build a fairer and more tolerant society. At the same time, she drew attention to the current increase in extremism and the need for financial support for the Roma and Sinti Centre to continue its important work.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Comedians

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The comedians Andrej Bakreni and Aljaž Poredoš filled the hall in Noršinci on Women’s. This stand-up performance by the two comedians breaks stereotypes about the cooperation and coexistence of Roma and non-Roma.

Andrej Bakreni is the first and at the same time the only Roma comedian in Slovenia. He jokes that he is a strange Roma because he attended kindergarten, then finished elementary school, then high school, got a job before the age of 20, had his first child when he was only 27.

France News Western Europe

On a Murder

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Her name was Angela Rostas, she was Romni and lived with her husband in a caravan on isolated land in Chênex, in France. She was 40 years old, the mother of three daughters and seven months pregnant. On February 22, she was shot and killed. That day, around 5 p.m., “she heard noises outside her mobile home. Going out to see what it was, she was shot on her doorstep and died,” says the French organization Voix des Roms in a press release, which also indicates having filed a complaint the week passed.

Roma associations suspect a racist murder.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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Not much this week in France about Roma: Basically several articles on the movie “Comme un fils” [like a son] from the French director Nicola Boukhrief featuring the actor Vincent Lindon in the role of a depressive teacher saved by a young rom.

Other news is the upcoming eviction of a camp in the South East of France.

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