A video of a young girls severely beating another one in total indifference of most other people around has gone viral in the Czech Republic. The Romano Journalist Patrick Banga reacts.
A discussion with the Romano journalist Patrick Banga about Roma in the Czech Republic. Officially, according the Census, there are only 20’000 Roma even though the government acknowledges that there are at least 250’000.
The article makes a few incorrect statements: Roma appeared in the Czech lands, in Bohemia and Moravia as early as the 13th century. They are thus there since 800 years. Unfortunately, during World War Two, most of the Czech Roma were deported and only a handful survived the Holocaust. Roma from Slovakia were resettled in what is now the Czech Republic by the communist regime after the war, which created a problem when Czechoslovakia split, as the Czech did not want to grant citizenship to those Roma.
A new museum in Montreuil en Bellay will be created to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. This location was an internment camp in France for Roma.
Other news are much more usual: An association devoted to the promotion of Roma culture (well, it is a bit of a stereotyped culture) celebrates its ten years. In the North, a family is facing expulsion. In the Southeast in Grenoble, neighbours of a squat are complaining. And finally, the story of a former fort near Paris which is supposed to be turned into a centre for oncology and is literally full of garbage. Until 2021, Roma were sorting out the garbage there.
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