Category Archives: Serbia

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Roma in Serbia

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It is difficult to accept one’s Roma identity. All nations in Europe have a majority population, but Roma are a minority in all European countries. That they are the same and yet different is a realization that Roma arrive to very early.

Bojan Branković (34) tells DW that as a child from a mixed marriage, he grew up in a small community, in Trstenik. He experienced discrimination for the first time at school: “Given that I am a child of different cultures, there was prejudice in my primary school, at the expense of my mother, who is a Romni.”

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Roma Days of Culture

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With the traditional greeting “Bibijako sastipe” (To the health of Auntie), the Days of Roma Culture began in Čačak, Serbia. These culture days will last from April 7 to 12,.

Bibija, Romani patron saint, healer and not yet canonized saint, is celebrated among Roma of the Orthodox faith. This celebration has been included in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Serbia since 2019.

This year, Bibija will be commemorated in Čačak with a special program organized by Roma associations. The following will be organized: an exhibition, a traditional meal, performances by cultural and artistic societies and dance groups, film screenings and concerts by the bands Kal and Pretty Loud.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Vojvodina and Roma TV

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Acting General Director of Vojvodina Radio and Television, Jožef Klem, and the President of the National Council of the Roma National Minority, Dalibor Nakić, discussed the possibilities and ways to improve programs in the Roma language in Novi Sad. They also highlighted the problems that hinder further progress.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia: Gala Evening for April 8th

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The Serbian Minister of Culture, Maja Gojković, said on the occasion of the gala evening in the House of the Army, organized on the occasion of the International Day of the Roma, that fostering friendship and coexistence, equally interwoven with victories and sufferings, the Roma today are an inseparable and extremely important and valuable part of our society.

Gojković pointed out that the Roma community is an integral part of society and that it has always considered Serbia its homeland, just like the Serbian people, and that it is important to make our climate a better place for both Serbs and Roma to live, as well as all other nations and national minorities that they live in Serbia.

Really????

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.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia and Roma

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The mayor of Belgrade said that Roma need to “make a decision about whether they want to live in a way today that follows the standards of the civilized world” – and adding that the city’s Roma get by on stealing and harassing citizens.

He was criticised. He should be dismissed.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Roma and other Minorities in Serbia

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The Serbian Roma Centre for Strategy, Development and Democracy submitted an initiative to introduce the Romani language into official use where, based on the census, the Roma community is represented in the local self-government bodies. They also proposed to introduce the Albanian language into official use throughout the territory of Serbia.

If Serbia is on the way to the European Union, then it is obliged to respect the rights and freedoms of minorities, in this case Roma and Albanians, but also Egyptians, Ashkali, Goranians, Bosniaks and Turks who use the Albanian language, according to the announcement.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Niš, Serbia: Forum

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A forum will be held “Suffering of Roma and Sinti in the Second World War” will be held on March 7th in the Synagogue of Niš. Osman Balić, president of the Presidency of the Standing Conference of Roma Citizens’ Associations in Serbia – League of Roma, Đokica Jovanović, retired sociologist and university professor, and Nebojša Ozmić, senior curator of the National Museum in Niš, will speak at the forum.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia, Roma, and Employment

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An initiative called “Open day”  whose goal is to introduce young Roma to potential employers, so that they can learn more about different occupations and motivate themselves to continue their education and choose an adequate profession. “Open door day” is implemented within the project “Promoting the employability of young Roma men and women – phase II”. The mentioned project is supported through the program of German financial cooperation, which is implemented by the German development bank KfW on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Germany – the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia, Police, and Roma

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The European Roma Right Centre and the Vojvoðanski romski centar are taking legal action against the Serbian police for having invaded a Roma home and brutally attacked the Roma.

Let’s see what comes out of it…

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Vasilica

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Vasilica, sometimes also called Bango Vasil, is celebrated all over the Balkans by Roma, be they Christians or Moslems.

Vasilica has been celebrated for a long time, as it is the “Old New-Year” of the Christian Orthodox calendar.

Nebojša Demirović Zeka from Vranje, Serbia, says that his great-grandfather told me that once upon a time, the Čergari Roma crossed some water. Their boats began to sink, and the geese saved them. Since that day, Vasilica is celebrated, while the goose is sacrificed.

The holiday is celebrated for health and happiness. It starts between January 13 and 14, and is celebrated for the next three days.

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 Serbia

Roma and Religion in Serbia

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An article on Roma and religion. Unfortunately not quite correct. First, “Del” means God only in the Vlach dialects, all the others (and thus the large majority of Roma) use the longer Prakrit “Devel”. And yes, while Roma have taken all the religions – generally adapting to the mainstream religion, Vasilica and Erdelezi (St. Georges Night) are only celebrated in the Balkan and are Christian remnants that survived the conversion to the Moslem faith during the Ottoman times.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia and Social Services

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According to Amnesty International, the new Serbian law on the social card is an intrusive surveillance system that risks harming the most marginalized members of the company, in particular to the Roma communities. Amnesty is submitting a legal opinion in the framework of the examination of the constitutionality of this law.

Coming into force on March 1, this law authorizes the creation of a centralized government database which processes 130 data categories concerning people who request social security in order to assess their eligibility. The Serbian authorities affirm that this procedure allows a more equitable distribution of funds intended for socially disadvantaged persons, but it is in reality an intrusive digital surveillance system which threatens the right to equality.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Romnja

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Prejudices are created over centuries and are difficult to eradicate. What is it like to be a girl, a girl and an adult woman, faced with numerous prejudices in society, but also with the traditions of your people?

Roma women are marginalized multiple times: in the Roma community itself, which was and remains very patriarchal, and then as members of the minority by the majority society. We asked eight women about how they grew up and what they experienced in the family, school and society. The stories are very different, even when it comes to close relatives, just as the women we talked to are different, of different generations and destinies.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia and Roma

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Twenty-five years ago, on October 18, 1997, after fishing, basketball and family gatherings, the Saturday day of a fourteen-year-old elementary school student from Belgrade should have ended peqacefully. Instead, around nine in the evening, Dušan Jovanović was knocked to the ground in front of a store near Belgrade’s Slavija by attackers, where they kicked him in the head with a cobblestone, and then hit him with part of a torn gutter.

He was killed only because he was a Roma. The killers were only three years older than the boy and were sentenced to a decade in juvenile prison in Valjevo. Both were released from prison in April 2004.

“That was the event that drove us to the streets for the first time,” says Osman Balić, director of the Yurom Center from Niš and president of the presidency of the League of Roma – the permanent conference of Roma citizens’ associations, for the BBC in Serbian.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbian Census

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The Roma Centre for Women and Children “Daje” today called on Roma to declare their national origin “without fear or shame” in the current population census. Roma tend not to declare themselves in censuses, resulting in uncertain numbers of Roma.

The representative of the center, Nada Đuričković, said that it is necessary to determine the exact number of Roma and Roma women and added that even before the census, the “Daje” center was conducting a census of Roma settlements. “We targeted the places where these settlements are located, visited them and talked to people… it is important for us that the state knows where these people are and sends enumerators,” she said.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia – Romodrom

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The ROMODROM event will open on October 1, 2022. at 8 p.m. in the Ciglana club with a discussion entitled “Roma in Serbian cinematography” . Participants in the debate are Goran Gocić , writer, journalist and film critic, Sreten Jovanović , film producer, Radenko Ranković , professor of film production and Gordana Nešić , journalist. The talk will be followed by a treat for music connoisseurs, a concert by the AMARO DEL group.

The ROMODROM project, will see several manifestations whose aim is educating the majority population about culture, traditional heritage and the participation of Roma in the cultural and socio-scientific life of our country. It is aimed at overcoming the gap created by centuries of stereotypical views of the Roma. Through cooperation with various artists and scientists of both Roma and non-Roma origin, the idea is to encourage and strengthen the healthy national pride of the Roma, which has been shaken over time and sometimes even led to negation.

Hungary News Eastern Europe Serbia

Justice for Roma in Hungary and Serbia

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A report of the discriminations faced by Roma and their lack of possibilities of recourse against these in the judicial system in Hungary and Serbia.  This is bad but not surprising.

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