Category Archives: News Eastern Europe

Novi Sad: Roma Bal

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The Novi Sad Roma Ball will be held on Friday, September 29, starting at 7 p.m., in Villa Moskva, Novi Sad.

Visitors can expect a rich program, a game competition and a contest for Miss Evening. Guests will be entertained by Milan Dimić’s orchestra with guest Roxana Chirit from Romania and other singers.

Slovakia: Racist Attacks

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MP Jozef Pročko (OĽaNO) has a sprained cervical spine and a bruised head after Monday’s incident in Lučenec where he was attacked. At the press conference, he appeared with a fixation collar and announced that he had filed a criminal complaint in connection with the physical attacks on his person.

Pročko, but also OĽaNO candidates Peter Pollák and Viliam Tankó talked about the escalating attacks at their meetings. “We are the target of verbal and physical attacks. Their reason is our Roma origin,” added Pollák.

It was a group of Roma candidates who led the election campaign on Monday in Lučenec, where Prochko also came to support them. “Unknown people started disrupting our event. They shouted at us that we are gypsies, parasites,” Pollák told journalists, adding that after the verbal attacks, there were also physical attacks on Proček.

  • Poslanec Jozef Pročko (OĽaNO) má po pondelkovom incidente v Lučenci podvrtnutú krčnú chrbticu a pomliaždenú hlavu. In: Dennik N. 19.09.2023. https://dennikn.sk/minuta/3577168/

Roma Refugees

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Apparently, there is a recent influx in Germany of Roma with brand new Ukrainian passports but who also have Hungarian passports asking for asylum. No one seems to know whether they are Ukrainian or Hungarian, and they speak Hungarian.

The most prosaic answer to this is that they are most probably from Transcarpathian Ukraine, and that thanks to the Hungarian Prime Minister, they were able to get a Hungarian passport as Hungarian speakers living abroad. Orban did grant Hungarian citizenship to Hungarian speakers outside of the country since quite a while.

Vilnius: Gypsy Fest

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Another article on the Gypsy Fest festival in Vilnius. It includes an annual Roma march through the city

This Roma procession was promoted by, among others, Isztwan Kwik, musician and leader of the band Sare Roma – a multi-generational band whose over 70-year history was highlighted by Honorata Adamowicz in the article “Three generations of Sare Roma. The Kwiks and the band revitalize the community” published in November last year.

Serbia, Roma, and Music

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The big autumn concert of the Svi UGLAS choir will be held on September 23. at 6 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Youth Center in Belgrade.

The SVI UGLAS choir is not quite an ordinary choir. It gathers Roma children and young people, as well as all other people who want to learn about Roma culture and get to know the Roma community through music. The choir was started in 2016 by the association Art Aparat headed by Maja Ćurčić, a music teacher and composer from Belgrade, and so far over 400 participants of all ages have sung in it.

Croatia and Segregation

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After a two-month summer break in the Croatian Parliament, the fall session began today with a “topical morning” during which MPs will ask questions to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and members of the Government. The session began violently, with the distribution of warnings due to objections by deputies to the order in which questions were asked.

Veljko Kajtazi, deputy from the Roma minority, asked why there is segregation of Roma children in Croatia, who are separated into special classes, and the Minister of Education Radovan Fuhs says that there are “pure Roma classes”, mostly in Međimurje County.

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The Gypsy Fest Festival is in full swing in Vilnius Lithuania, with a procession through town on the Sunday.

Unfortunately, some of the stereotypes are presented there too.

Slovenia and Roma

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Burning waste not in the open is prohibited by law, but it is also harmful to health, warns the National Institute of Public Health. Residents of Sončni dvori in Grosuplje  are  particularly disturbed by the burning of waste in the nearby Roma settlement of Smrekec. Because of it, residents are forced to inhale smoke and lock themselves in their apartments.

This has usually two causes: Heating with whatever is found that burns, or scraping plastic out of old wires. It is a result of poverty.

Slovak Uprising and Roma

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Slovakia commemorated one of the most important events in its modern history – the beginning of the partisan rebellion against the Nazi regime. At least 130,000 Slovaks and, according to historical sources, another 8,400 foreign fighters of thirty different nationalities fought in the Slovak mountains from August 29, 1944 until the end of the war.

In addition to Czechs, Spaniards, Italians and/or Ruthenians, the Roma also joined the resistance, explains ethnographer and historian Zuzana Kumanová.

“In 1940, a military law was passed, on the basis of which Roma boys did not become soldiers and performed substitute military service only in the 6th unarmed work battalion. That is where labelling, marking people unsuitable for the defence of the homeland, appeared for the first time. And other regulations, which were related to displacement outside the villages, in turn created space for the support of partisans,” the ethnographer and historian points out.

In January 1945, for example, the German Wehrmacht herded 60 Roma, including women and children, into huts in Čierno Balog and set fire to the houses. All died on the spot. However, historian and ethnographer Kumanová reminds us that Roma victims of World War II are not often talked about. The Ma bisteren project is therefore trying to raise awareness of the Roma Holocaust.

Bosnia, Roma, and Education

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Roma students do not come to class because they do not have transportation. Children who live in the Konik settlement do not attend classes in six elementary schools in the capital, since the beginning of the school year, on September 4.

Slovakia Mayor

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A Roma mayor, often described as the “Roma king” Attila Géňa died under suspicious circumstances which are being investigated by the police. The tragic event affected the entire village near Prešov and its surroundings. He was run over by a wheel loader and suffered serious injuries, from which he succumbed on Wednesday, September 13.

The multiple Romani candidate for mayor from the Prešov region became mayor for the second time last year, but in 2018, after winning, he had to vacate his mayoral seat due to several crimes, including allegations of sexual abuse.

Slovakia and Roma Displaced People

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A Roma settlement in Telgárt, Slovakia almost totally burnt out in July. Now, the Slovak state announced they will end the aid for those families who lost their homes. Will they also take away the tents they currently live in?

Exhibition in Gdansk

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“Historians are still trying to estimate the exact number of victims of the crime in Ponary, which was committed by the German occupiers together with Lithuanian auxiliary troops, the Shaulis. Estimates say at least 80,000. victims” said Deputy Minister of Culture and National Heritage Dr. Jarosław Sellin during the opening of the exhibition “Victims of crime in Ponary near Vilnius 1941-1944”, which took place today at Targ Węglowy in Gdańsk . The exhibition can be visited until September 29, 2023.

The victims were mostly Jewish but there were also Roma and Poles who were killed there.

Roma Centre in Prague

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The new centre for Roma is scheduled to open in Prague in November 2024. It is set up in the Dejvice district in a villa from the times of the First Czechoslovak Republic by the Museum of Roma Culture (MRK). The keys were handed over to the construction company on Wednesday, which is now starting the renovation. This was announced by the director of the MRK, Jana Horváthová, to the ČTK press agency.

 

Evictions in Slovakia

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The Regional Court in Košice ruled in favour of nine Roma plaintiffs who were forcibly evicted from their homes in Nižné Kapustníky in Košice eleven years ago.

This was reported on Wednesday by Jonathan Lee from the European Center for Roma Rights, according to which the city of Košice evicted the entire local Roma community under the pretext of garbage removal.

According to him, the residents were not offered any alternative accommodation after their homes were demolished, as a result of which they became homeless.

Slovenia and Roma

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The police do not officially keep statistics on crime committed by Roma, but the police can say that in municipalities with a large number of Roma, they cause up to 90 percent of all crime.

In Ivančna Gorica, the situation is so serious that the locals decided to organize the so-called village guards.

Infamia

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Two more articles among a plethora of them n the new Polish Netflix series on Roma.

The series, while highlighting serious problems and challenges faced by Roma, also perpetuates many clichés. That is not so good.

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