01.11.2014 Romani Rose condemns migration policy towards Rroma

In a recent statement, Romani Rose, chairman of the central council of German Sinti and Rroma, criticised the repressive migration and asylum policy towards Rroma from Eastern Europe. 25 years after the end of the Soviet bloc, a new wall between East and West Europe menaces to emerge, fuelled by xenophobic policies and corresponding migration measures, particularly aimed against Rroma: “25 years after the fall of the wall, Romani Rose, chairman of the central council of German Sinti and Roma, cautions against a new division of Europe – at least for the members of his minority. The debate about the so-called poverty migration, which took place on the back of the Roma, has led to the situation in Eastern Europe “that someone with dark eyes and dark hair is arrested on the border”, Rose said during a visit to the of Bundestag Vice-President Claudia Roth (Green) at Central Council in Heidelberg. […] For the Roma of the Balkans, Roth called for a rapid improvement in the situation. “We must begin by acknowledging that there is a group-specific persecution: these people are persecuted and discriminated against because they are Roma”, Roth said. About the last point, however, there is no consensus. While most experts agree that Rroma are affected by severe economic hardship and discrimination in everyday life, there is no consensus on an ethnic-related persecution. This is disputed by various parties, which refer to the long, historically documented integration of Rroma in Eastern Europe. Comprehensive, objective studies on the situation of Rroma since the end of the Soviet bloc, about the rise of nationalism and the Yugoslav wars, which massively altered the socio-political situation – and renewed and ethnic divisions – are rare. Rose also expressed the wish that a museum about the Rroma history should be opened in Berlin. The monument alone conveys too little background knowledge about the history of exclusion and persecution of the minority, he stated (Rhein-Neckar Zeitung 2014).