The king of Romane song in Slovakia, Kamil Polakovič, passed away on August 16th at the age of 47 after a long illness.
May he rest in peace.
The mayor of the town of Poprad, in Slovakia, when asked why the city is and thus they would not build them. The mayor claims he did not refer to Roma.
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What happened to the infamous Roma settlement of Lunik IX in Košice, one year after the visit of the pope? Not much, but nevertheless, the life there has progressively gotten better. Gone is the large garbage dump, replaced by a children playing ground, buildings are not as dilapidated as they used to.
This is not only due to the pope’s visit, as this transformation started before and is continuing. Nevertheless, much more needs to be done as unemployment is still rampant. Education is still sup-par for Roma too.
On Friday, the Prosecutor General Maroš Žilinka disclosed he will not submit a proposal to dissolve the ĽSNS. The spokesperson of the Prosecutor General’s Office Skladan stated that “The Prosecutor General of the Slovak Republic has not yet found the conditions for filing a lawsuit for the dissolution of the political Kotleba’s party – Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko according to section 384 et seq. of the Administrative Court Code.”
It seems that questioning the Holocaust, insulting and threatening all minorities, pledging allegiance to the fascist Slovak state, yelling, using the greeting “On guard!”, handing out checks with Nazi symbols, wearing tattooed swastikas and marching in guardsmen’s suits are not a threat to democracy.
The Slovak president Čaputová even spoke Romanes on the occasion of the August 2nd commemorations in Slovakia.
The Luník IX estate in Košice, although built as an ideal socialist housing estate, for years was known as the largest slum in this part of Europe. The district is the largest concentration of the Roma population in Slovakia, there was unimaginable poverty and terrible living and sanitary conditions there. People had to live surrounded by heaps of rubbish between which rats were running. This sad landscape has slowly started to change recently.
Luník IX was built as an ABC estate. “A” for army, “B” for security, and “C” for gypsies. It quickly turned out, however, that neither the militiamen nor the soldiers intend to live there.
In connection with the upcoming Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day (August 2), the ethnographer, historian and currently advisor to the Slovak Minister of Justice in the field of human rights, Zuzana Kumanová stated that about 22,000 European Roma passed through the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, and about 19,000 of them never returned.
As usual, this is factually right, but effectively wrong. There were 22’000 REGISTERED Roma in Auschwitz. But by the same token, “only” roughly 300 thousand Jews. People who were immediately killed were not registered.
After the delegation of European MPs visited Slovak Roma settlements, the European Commission began to pressure Slovakia to prepare a completely new system for drawing European funds for Roma inclusion projects. The government managed to convince the commission and proposed a new structure. The head of the new management structure will be the commissioner for Roma communities, who will coordinate the use of more than 900 million euros. An administrative apparatus of more than four hundred people will help him with this.
Well, let’s see how this works.
A Roma festival in the central Slovakian town of Nitra.
This Saturday, the 20th anniversary Czech-Slovak Miss Roma 2022 will take place in Hodonín. A total of 12 girls will compete for the crown of Roma beauty queen. The event is organized by the Romia CZ association in cooperation with the Hodonín House of Culture and is held under the auspices of Senator Anna Hubáčková and Governor of the South Moravian Region Jan Grolich.
Another Slovak article about the visit of EU MPs in Slovakia where they were shocked by how neglected some Roma communities are in the east of Slovakia. They stated: “It is absolutely scandalous that European citizens still do not have access to drinking water in the 21st century. It is a shame for Slovakia and a shame for Europe that some Roma live in medieval conditions.”
A delegation of EU parliamentarians visited Slovakia to see how EU funds were used by the country. They found the situation in Roma settlements “scandalous” and were shocked by the lack of amenities and services in these settlements. This could cost Slovakia quite a bit of EU funds.
According to the chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee for Regional Development, Younous Omarjee, the situation in the Roma settlements in Slovakia is an absolute scandal and a shame for the European Union and Slovakia. He stated this after visiting a Roma settlement in the village of Petrovce nad Laborcom (Michalovce district) on Thursday.
A local action of a Roma association painted an ugly wall in a Roma settlement in Nitra. The association is helping keep the place clean and safe.
The package of laws passed by the finance minister Igor Matovič is not good for poor families. The allowance for first-year students will be abolished, the poorest will only receive a small tax bonus, and the state will take half of the allowances for children whose parents do not send them to school – although the parents no longer receive the money, but the municipality. This last measure clearly aimed at Roma.
Bad.
The young Slovak historian Viktória Rigová focused her research on so called “problematic” youth. The result of her research is a very interesting and thought-provoking book, Youth over the Abyss, in which she presents the results of her research into a neglected area of Slovak social history. It monitors the social care of children and youth during the interwar period of Czechoslovakia and the Slovak State, i.e. in the period 1918-1945. In a narrower focus, it focuses on children and youth, referred to as “problem youth”.
The United Nations (UN) has warned for many years that climate change will hit the most vulnerable population groups with the lowest ability to adapt. In Slovakia, they are mainly residents of Roma settlements who, even in 2022, often live without access to basic infrastructure, education or drinking water. “It’s hard to convince people in a poor area to triage at all when they don’t have access to drinking water or sewage. Many people in Slovakia and Europe live in the conditions of the African continent. It is very difficult to talk to them about climate change,” stated MEP Peter Pollák (OĽaNO/EPP) at the discussion Green change from below, organized by the EURACTIV Slovakia portal.
A short video on the case of a Slovak man and a Polish woman who were sentenced recently for enslaving at least 29 young Roma in the UK.
A Slovak man and a Polish woman were sentenced respectively to 16 and 9 years of jail in the UK for having enslaved at least 29 young Roma who were brought to the UK on false promises, and then forced to work for 16 to 18 hours per day, seven days a week.
Had it been Roma who had done that, this would be splashed all over the papers …
In the aftermath of the condemnation of Slovakia and the compensation of the victims of a police beating in Moldova nad Bodvou, a round table on the subject in Slovakia.
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