Category Archives: News Eastern Europe

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia and Roma

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The Murska Sobota Development Center has organized a first “international” Roma conference at the RIS Dvorec Rakičan, aimed at exchanging views on education and political and social inclusion of the Roma community. The director of the Office for Nationalities, Stane Baluh, estimated that in Slovenia the legal and formal issues regarding participation are well regulated, but they are lame in practice.

Effectively, Roma are segregated…

Italy News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Poland

Review of the Biennale

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Review of the Biennale

Poland is represented this year by the exhibition “Charming the world” by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas. How was it created? And will it be possible to see it in Poland?

Roma culture is strongly associated with dance and music, but seldom with visual arts. This changes slowly, among others thanks to Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, who now represents Poland at the Venice Biennale – the most important event of this type in the world.

The artist is a Romni and has devoted all her work to date to the fight to change the historical narrative of the Roma community. Both the romantic one, showing the Roma people as free, dealing mainly with music and wandering around the world, and the ominous one – ascribing to them a tendency to cheat and trick others. She does it in an artistically original, intriguing and, above all, convincing way. – I don’t want to fight the whole world, naively thinking that it will suddenly change everything.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria and Roma

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Bulgaria and Roma

In Pleven, Bulgaria, Roma children will be included in sports clubs in football, tennis and basketball. The idea is to “socialise” children and students from ethnic minorities through sports, explained Ivaylo Lazarov, director of the Student Sports School (USS) in Pleven, which won funding for its project “To play sports together, albeit different”.

What this also implicitly says: Up till now, Roma children were not included … That says a lot.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poland: Memorial

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Poland: Memorial

A year ago, at the cemetery in Imbramowice, near Wrocław, the construction of a monument financed by the Institute of National Remembrance was completed on a collective grave of 50 Polish citizens of Roma nationality, murdered by the Germans on February 2 and 3, 1943 in Imbramowice and Wolbrom. At that time, due to the limitations related to the pandemic, it was not possible to consecrate the tombstone. It was successfully consecrated last Sunday.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Czech Republic and Roma refugees

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Czech Republic and Roma refugees

Roma refugees in Prague were housed in 4 large tents. Two of them have now been dismantled.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and Projects

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Slovakia and Projects

Dozens of Roma civic activists from Gemer, Novohrad and Malohont in Slovakia have been participating in activities aimed at furthering their involvement in cultural, social and communal events in the region since the autumn of 2019. The project, implemented by the Láčho drom cultural and educational association from Kokava nad Rimavicou in the Poltár district, was supported by the European Social Fund through the Operational Program Effective Public Administration in the amount of EUR 338,625, of which five percent was co-financing.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Czech Republic and Roma Holocaust

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A former Czech MP has been sentenced to six months’ probation for denying the genocide of the Roma. In 2017, Miloslav Rozner of the right-wing party Freedom and Direct Democracy described the Roma concentration camp in Lety as a “non-existent pseudo-concentration camp”. A district court in Prague assessed this as a denial of the genocide of the Sinti and Roma. However, the judgment is not yet final.

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Ustasha and Roma

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Ustasha and Roma

Croatia for the first tie commemorated Roma victims of the Ustasha who literally killed the entire Roma population of Croatia. Meanwhile, the Jewish community declined to participate in the commemoration in Jasenovac, the infamous concentration camp. They are right, and Roma should do the same.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Roma Activist on the Ukraine

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Roma Activist on the Ukraine

Ukrainian Roma activists are criticising the ongoing discrimination against Roma in the Ukraine and highlight that this is being used by Russian propaganda to brand Ukrainians as “Nazis”.

News Eastern Europe Ukraine

The Scandal Pictures

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The Scandal Pictures

The picture of Roma bound to posts made it through social media, amplified by Russia, alleging this was outright discrimination. As usual, reality is more circumstantiated, as these Roma were caught stealing (see also below the article in Romea). Nevertheless, self-justice, and especially of this kind is not acceptable.

This Ukrainian article strongly condemn this act, and effectively says this plays in the hand of the Russians in their attempt to portray all Ukrainians as Nazis.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Hero

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Hero

Better housing, employment and better living conditions are to be brought by the HERO – Housing and Empowerment for Roma project, funded by the European Parliament to members of marginalized Roma communities. If the aid model implemented in five Slovak municipalities and others in Bulgaria and Romania proves successful, it is to be applied throughout Europe, as per Ingrid udviková from the Press Office of the European Commission (EC) in Slovakia.

Italy News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Poland

Venice Biennale

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Venice Biennale

A project by the Polish-Romani artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas was inaugurated in the Polish pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. For the first time in the over 120-year history of the Biennale, the national pavilion is represented by a Roma artist. The pavilion opening ceremony was attended by: Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Wanda Zwinogrodzka, director of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute Barbara Schabowska and director of Zachęta Janusz Janowski.

Italy News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Poland

Venice Biennale

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Venice Biennale

The art of Małgorzata Mirga-Tas is an attempt or a tool to unlearn thinking that lead to the current war, say Joanna Warsza and Wojciech Szymański, curators of the exhibition “Przeczarowanie świat”, which will be shown at the Polish Pavilion in Venice as part of the Art Biennale 2022.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia and Roma

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Slovenia and Roma

Jožek Horvat-Muc, president of the Roma Association of Slovenia (ZRS) was interviewed on the situation of Roma in Slovenia and on what still needs to be done. Horvat notes that each government has done something, but none has done enough.

Still a long way to go for this rather small minority.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Ukraine

Czech Republic and Roma Refugees

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Simply they don’t want them.

The editor-in-chief of the Info.cz server, Michal Půr, went to the assistance centre for refugees, where Ukrainians are registered, and he was unpleasantly surprised by what he witnessed. He described on Twitter how he was shocked by the Roma camp and what would need to be improved within the organization without delay.

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