Category Archives: News Eastern Europe

Slovenia, Activists, and Stereotypes

Published by:

Bogdan Miklič, a journalist and Romano activist who has been fighting against stereotypes and prejudice against Roma is being accused of having built a house on municipal land. The tone of the article is very much “see I told you …”.

Bad for all.

Svi Uglas

Published by:

The Svi uglas choir, which gathers Roma children and young people, as well as all others interested in learning about Roma culture and getting to know the Roma community through music, will hold a big concert on Saturday in the Youth Center, and as special guests they will be joined by Konstrakt, the first female Roma hip-hop band Pretty Loud, and the choir of the First Belgrade High School.

International Roma Conference

Published by:

On Thursday, September 21, an international Roma conference was held in Radenci, Slovenia. Representatives of the Roma community from 15 countries discussed several topics important to Roma with representatives of national and European institutions. In the foreground were the implementation of the European Commission’s ten-year plan for supporting Roma in the EU and the presentation of good practices for solving the problems of the Roma community.

Slovakia: Relocation

Published by:

Roma from the settlement near the ecoduct of the D3 highway in Kysuck, near the border crossing in Svrčinovec, were to be moved by the end of March. It only succeeded six months after the deadline. Petitions, filed criminal reports and dissatisfaction of people in places where an external company provided them with accommodation did not help either.

Part of the Roma were relocated to a house in Lupušné Pažiaty in the district of Kysucké Nové Mesto, and another family found a new home in a property in Rakova on Zákopecká cesta. Even the house in Čadc – Podzávoz, where the settlers were moved by a truck of the National Highway Company in the early evening of Wednesday, September 13, is no longer abandoned. The rest of the inhabitants of the settlement were moved to the customs building in Makovo, where they found temporary accommodation.

Novi Sad: Roma Bal

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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.

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

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

Published by:

“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.

rroma.org
de_DEDE