Category Archives: News Eastern Europe

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Enough!

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The gathering of the Marian Kotleba supporters in Michalovce will have an follow up: Roma in Slovakia are planning a series of protests against the former member of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, Marian Kotleba.

The marches will be held in larger cities and towns, they want to invite representatives of the European Commission to in addition to journalists. They will report them to the relevant authorities during this week. František Tanko, the chairman of the civic association Union of Roma in Slovakia, informed about this today at a briefing in front of the Presidential Palace.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Manifestation Video

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Hundreds of Roma gathered on the square in Michalovce on Sunday afternoon to honor the memory of 46-year-old nurse Erika, who was murdered at the beginning of the year. The leader of the LSNS party, Marián Kotleba, accused the entire Roma community of the murder and called an anti-Roma rally in Michalovci. Roma booed him on Sunday.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Manifestations

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The Slovak town of Michalovce saw manifestations on Sunday following the brutal murder of a woman by a young Rom.  A commemoration for the victim was planned for the Sunday, and the extreme right politician Marian Kotleba had called his supporters to manifest there, prompting several hundred Roma to come and manifest their sympathy to the family of the victim.

​The gathering was peaceful until Marian Kotleba appeared on the podium. At that time, the Roma made it clear that they did not agree with his presence. Subsequently, they gradually began to leave the square. There have been no clashes.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Murder

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A week after the shockingly cruel and senseless murder of 46-year-old Erika, a large public gathering of people will take place in Michalovce. Everything indicates that there will be a clash between the extreme right Marián Kotleba’s followers and the Roma community. This can create an extremely conflicting situation in the city. The police are therefore on standby.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Novi Mesto

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From 2016 to 2019, former Zares MP Franci Kek received 20,950 euros from the municipality of Novo mesto to participate as a social worker in the coordination of work between local community authorities and state authorities in the field of Roma integration in their municipality. The municipality explained this as follows: “His work, with his understanding of the Roma issue and the many contacts he has acquired through his previous work, covered an area for the municipality of Novo mesto that was not covered by the colleagues of the municipal administration.”

Some of the conclusions on dealing with the Roma “issue” are interesting: It is particularly pressing in Novi Mesto, as the city is surrounded by Roma settlements, which are the source of crime, violence, unemployment, lack of education… His report on the work done in October 2018 is a cause for concern, in which, among other things, it is written that he was at a meeting with the then to the State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Dominika Švarc Pipan (now the Minister of Justice).

“The secretary believes that it is not up to the Ministry of Justice to implement the measure of abolishing fines at the same time as introducing the possibility of reducing the penalty from the work of social transfers. I think that this move would arouse great resistance in the public, so it would be necessary to hold quite a lot of talks with the non-governmental sphere before that.” for various offenses (Roma in Dolenjska are among the record holders) fines are taken from social assistance’s cash.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Discrimination

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The case of a waitress who refused to serve Roma in a bar in Černelavc. Apparently, the waitress made no secret of her disregard towards Roma. Her and the bar’s lawyer argued that she thought one of the three Roma she refused to serve had been involved in a brawl the day before in the bar, which proved to be untrue.

The bar and waitress lost the case.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Ukraine: Two Brothers

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Volodymyr  and Radislav Mykhaylov are Roma from the Chernihiv Oblast to the northeast of Kyiv. Volodymyr sings at charity concerts while Radislav fights in the Ukrainian forces. Radislav came back from abroad to enroll in the army.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovak Census

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The Slovak Census allowed for the first time to state a “second nationality”. First among them were Roma, of which 88,985 declared themselves. Note that there are probably around 400’000 of them in Slovakia. In total, more than 306,000 people indicated a second nationality in the census.

More than 55,000 residents saw Slovak as their second nationality, which is more than 18 percent of all residents who stated a second nationality. Less than 40,000 residents declared Ruthenian nationality as their second nationality, and more than 34,000 stated that their second nationality is Hungarian. 16,715 inhabitants stated Czech nationality as their second nationality. According to the results of the census, German nationality is the second nationality for 5,255 inhabitants of Slovakia. 4,871 people declared Russian nationality as their second nationality, i.e. 1.59 percent of the population who stated a second nationality. Polish nationality is the second nationality for 1,511 male and female residents, slightly more of them reported Ukrainian as the second nationality, namely 1,586.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Murder

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On New-Years’ Eve, in Michaloviec near Zemplin, Slovakia, a 48-year-old woman was brutally murdered. The perpetrator, who was caught recently, turns out to be an 18-year-old Rom. This has provided material to the extreme right in Slovakia, with Marian Kotleba, the leader of one of the most extreme parties there claiming this is clearly a “Gypsy” issue and that politics should intervene, as Roma cannot be integrated. The former representative of the government for the Roma, Ábel Ravasz, pointed out that the murder is the failure of an individual and society should not condemn the Roma community. In an interview, he says that the extreme right will be using this as a tool for getting more votes.

Bosnia News Eastern Europe

Bosnia: Human Trafficking

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Two people were sentenced recently in Bosnia Hercegovina for human trafficking. They had forced people to beg and steal in Paris by threatening them and their families back home. Apparently, they managed to earn around 1.5 mio EUR between 2012 and 2015.

The threats were recorded, which provided the evidence and they were sentenced to 12 years each.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia: Anna Koptova

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A Romni, Anna Koptova, received the Slovak state award. As a member of parliament in the 1990s, Anna Koptová worked to ensure that the Roma were recognized as a national minority. According to her, there is a lack of passion in the fight for Roma rights today. “It’s not enough to show up to meetings or have papal visit settlements and when they leave they just wipe the mud off their shoes.”

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic’s first Roma Commissioner

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The Czech Republic has taken an important step in addressing the complex situation of Czech Roma. As recently as December 2022, the government of Prime Minister Petr Fiala created the post of government commissioner for Roma community affairs at its last meeting of the year and appointed 41-year-old Romni Lucie Fukova as the first Roma commissioner.

News Eastern Europe News Switzerland North Macedonia

The Šutka

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Swiss television definitively not at its best. 8-10 Mio Roma (the Council of Europe cites 12 to 14, but then, the Swiss must know it better), and now a capital: the Šutka in Skopje.

It is always amazing what people can write or say about Roma with total impunity.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Niš – Serbia

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or ten years, the 12 February Roma camp in Niš has been trying in vain to obtain a reliable electricity connection. Instead of a solution, the neighborhood was completely without electricity for six months – a record. The inhabitants decided to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Energy and Mines in Belgrade on December 6th. The authorities then promised representatives of the Opra Roma Srbija movement that the camp would be reconnected and that a lasting solution would be found.

Well, let’s see when this is done …

News Eastern Europe Poland

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

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An interview on Polish TV of the Romani artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas. She talks openly about her inspirations in art, Roma women who are important to her, and about stereotypes she would like to fight against. She admits that the Roma have to “try twice as hard, prove twice as hard”. “We are second-class citizen,” says Mirga-Tas. The artist is involved in many social projects counteracting exclusion, racial discrimination and xenophobia. She also participated in the reconstruction of the monument commemorating the Genocide of the Roma.

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Croatia and Adoptions

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A disturbing article about a centre for adoption in Croatia who is “among the leader of realised adoptions” having  placed “18 children of Roma origin” thus giving them “the opportunity for a better and different life”. Follows the rosy story of an adopted girl who now excels at school and will work when she graduates, and of course many stereotypes…

Bad.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria and Mahalas

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Another story of an “illegal” building, this time in a Mahala (Roma neighbourhood) in Plovdiv, with the police sealing the building waiting for bulldozers to destroy it.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland and Roma

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A somewhat confusing article about Roma in the Polish Press. On the one hand, the story of Ukrainian Roma and some of the stories that are told about them which are mostly false, and on the other hand, the story of Roam in Norway, with the strong discrimination, removal of children etc. that was the norm in that country. All with a mention of the Swiss policies amounting to the same.

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