Author Archives: Roma Foundation

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland: Exhibitions

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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.

News Eastern Europe Poland Ukraine

The Church and Refugees in the Ukraine

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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.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland, Foreigners, and Minorities

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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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News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Discrimination in Slovakia

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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.

News Western Europe Spain

Spain and Roma

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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.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Forced Sterilisations

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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.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria, the State, and Mahala

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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.

France News Western Europe

France: New Book

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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.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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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.

Germany News Western Europe

Munich: Artwork

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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.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria: Police Action

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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.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Kazanlak: Tensions Remain

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In order to de-escalate the tension between the warring Roma families after the mass fight in Kazanlak, mayors from the area and the leadership of the police in the city discussed emergency measures, bTV reported.

The enmity between the two Roma families has been going on for 30 years. “I cannot live that my child died, that my child was beaten in a fight. I have two sons in hospital, one died and my other son is now with his father in hospital,” said the mother of the man killed in the mass fight.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria: Another Fight

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Another fight between Roma families broke out on Thursday in Devin. 18 people were detained afterwards. Luckily, this time no one died.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Robin Stria

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Another article on Robin Stria, a prominent Roma activist, documentarian and artist, who died at the age of just thirty-two. He was born on September 12, 1990 in Jihlava, but from the age of three he grew up in the care of adoptive parents in Skrchov near Letovice. He graduated from the grammar school, then the Evangelical Academy and the Social and Legal Higher Vocational School. He worked as a social worker in the Brno organizations IQ Roma servis and DROM, where he was the head of the community centre.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland and Beggars

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Poznań residents report that people of Roma origin appear on the streets and in shopping centers asking for money. They are often children, sometimes without parents. Some, seeing a few-year-old with a hand outstretched for money, want to act. So they call the police or the city guard. It doesn’t work though.

Polish law clearly states that beggars can be arrested and fined, as begging is forbidden. But it does not solve the poverty issue.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria: The Brawl

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After the fight in Kazanlak between Roma families in which one man was killed, the Ministry of Internal Affairs detained 13 people during an action in Taža and Manolovo, two neighbouring villages. The families who caused the mass fight in Kazanlak 2 days ago, after which one person died, live there.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Robin Stria

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Robin Stria, a promising director and curator of the video collection of the Museum of Roma Culture in Brno, died suddenly at the age of thirty-two in mid-March. He succumbed to a very rare urological disease.

The Museum of Roma Culture describes Stria as a director, documentarian and artist who was an active member of the community and a key partner in documenting important moments in Roma history and the activities of the museum.

May he rest in peace.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Bibija

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Orthodox Roma celebrated the feast of Bibija in Mladenovac, Serbia. Bibi is celebrated around a fruit tree, usually a pear, which is then called bibi. Before the celebration, the tree is decorated with flowers and red ribbons, and fasting food and drinks are placed around it. Every year, the host of the celebration is another local, and when the singing of the prayer is over, the host serves the guests with food and drinks.

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