A Rom was murdered yesterday near Athens following a fight in a Roma camp. This time it was not the police and is unrelated to the latest protests.
But it is not good for the Roma community to have these kind of headlines.
Roma leaders in Greece have appealed to calm following riots in major cities in Greece following the shooting of a young Roma in Thessaloniki. At least 10 police officers were injured during the riots in Athens with protester also commemorating another fatal shooting by the police in 2008.
There were manifestations in Athens, Thessaloniki, and other Greek cities following the shooting of Kostas Frangoulis, a 16-year-old Roma in Thessaloniki. He was severely wounded by the Police after allegedly failing to pay a €20 (£17) fuel bill at a petrol station. These manifestations took place on the eve of the commemoration of another shooting of another teenager killed on Decembe 6th, 2008 by an officer in Athens’ Exarchia district. Last year, another young Rom Nikos Sampanis was fatally shot in a car chase near Athens. There is a clear pattern of violence here.
The protesters shouted slogans such as “Stop the murderous police”.
A 16-year-old Roma boy was shot by the police in Thessaloniki, Greece, after he allegedly filled his vehicle at a fuel station and drove off without paying. The young man is in hospital in critical condition and the policeman sho shot him has been suspended.
There was a protest march in the city, organised by leftists and anarchists which degenerated with some of the protesters smashing shop windows and throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. This is not good.
The shooting of a Rom by the police is not the first case in Greece unfortunately.
The French city of Montpellier is carrying out an unprecedented experiment to try to integrate the Roma. The City evacuated the slum of Celleneuve, one of the largest in France, in favour of a “transition village”. Those who have agreed to go there benefit from intensive follow-up.
In April 2022, the slum in the Celleneuve district, west of Montpellier, was emptied and then destroyed after 10 years of existence. It was one of the biggest in France with 250 people. While slum dwellers are usually purely and simply expelled in France, without any alternative solution, the city of Montpellier and the prefecture of Hérault have opted for a different method. Thus, about fifty families agreed to be housed in a transitional village, on the edge of the highway, in a series of spartan but healthy bungalows equipped with water and electricity.
The numbers are interesting here: 250 people in a slum for 10 years … And 50 families for 250 people means that families have on average 5 people. Not really the very large families that are reported to by the press.
The United Nations is concerned about “the racist political discourse held by political leaders”, as well as the proliferation of hateful and discriminating words in the media in France. This is not new if one think what Manuel Valls, a former Prime Minister said about Roma while in power. But it is good that it is being highlighted.
Other news are more usual: A group of Roma and volunteers cleaned the garbage in a wood. Police arrested Bosnian Roma specialised in stealing power tools.
The Portuguese president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in a speech on Portugal’s Independence Day commemorated the contribution of Roma who fought for Portugal’s independence. Bruno Gonçalves, the vice president of the Roma organisation “Letras Nómadas” said that “for the first time in five centuries someone has had the courage to remember that the Portuguese are also Roma, who fought, who were also in historical records that often do not appear in textbooks or educational programmes”.
On German Television, Andreas Bönte talks with his guests about how Sinti and Roma live in Europe today, how prejudices can be broken down and how fairer coexistence can be shaped in the future. Among the prominent ones: Romani Rose, Dotschy Rienhardt, Mehmet Daimagüler.
They said it: The largest transnational minority in Europe.
BUT: Again, they speak of 600 years in Europe, forgetting that Bulgaria, Thrakia, Constantinople, and all the Balkan and Carpaths were and are also part of Europe and that Roma arrived there earlier. When will this stop.
For the first time in History, Roma in England and Wales had to possibility to declare themselves as such in a census. Over 100’000 did so, with many tens of thousands identifying themselves as Gypsies or Travellers.
There is an ongoing controversy in Berlin currently where the Senate wants to send 600 Moldovan refugees back to Moldova before Christmas to make room for Ukrainian refugees. Some of those 600 are Roma so this is not good.
An article / podcast on cultural approbation, a hot topic currently.
Two articles this week tackle the recurrent rumours of Roma stealing children in France. One documentary returns to the series of attacks perpetrated against the Roma community in Seine-Saint-Denis following fake news forcefully relayed on the internet. The other one looks at the many instances where this rumour made its mark: Marseilles in 2008, Paris region in 2018, in between Bordeaux, or even Naples in Italy.
Other news are more of the usual ones: 7 years of jail for Bulgarian Roma who smuggled tobacco; issues in a town near Geneva with Roma; and a film festival showing the movie “une jeunesse Rom”.
Romani Rose, the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma is a new member of the International Auschwitz Council. The Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki appointed him to the committee. The Council advises the Polish government on all matters relating to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. Other members include Yad Vashem Chairman Dayan and World Jewish Congress President Lauder. Rose warned that nationalists and right-wing extremists in many European countries were trying to deny and relativize the crimes of the Holocaust against six million Jews and 500,000 Sinti and Roma. Every form of Holocaust denial and falsification of history must be opposed. Education programs specifically for young people at historical sites of persecution and extermination are important “to counteract anti-Semitism, anti-Gypsyism and racism in our societies,” Rose explained.
Germany Antitziganism representative Mehmet Daimagüler, asks for the creation of a “truth commission” to deal with the persecution of Sinti and Roma during and after the Nazis. He explains why “reconciliation” lags why memorial events are a lie and why the minority cannot feel safe.
A chilling reportage on the world of hate against Travellers and Roma in online forums in the UK. This is bad, and should definitively be curtailed.
Don Vasyl, one of the best known Roma musicians in Poland, is being accused of plagiarism by two Polish artists who claim he stole some of their music and works. The conflict is apparently not new, dating back 16 years (!). One of the pieces is the song Dželem Dželem where Don Vasyl is accused of having used the Polish words written by the artists. A first court ruling dismissed the case, but the lawyers of the Polish artists decided to appeal this decision.
The flight escape of a Sinti family from the Holocaust will be the focus of a book presentation on November 28 in the Neubrandenburg regional library. The opera and operetta singer Mirano Cavaljeti-Richter wrote the book together with the historian Annette Leo. It’s called “Fleeing across the Balkans. The childhood experiences of a Sinto boy during the Nazi era” and was published by Metropol-Verlag in Berlin.
The 89-year-old Cavaljeti-Richter grew up in a traditional extended family of comedians who used caravans to perform their variety programs in small towns and villages in the 1930s. In 1939 the family fled Germany via Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. The singer was six years old at the time and describes how the family gradually lost everything but were able to save their lives.
Not much this week, which is always good. An extended family in Uzès, in the South is looking for a new place to stay after nearly 9 years in the same camp; a new camp being set up near Nantes and resulting protests; near Geneva, a mayor tries to find lodging for Roma; and finally, France being pointed out for racism by the UNO.
The district court of Neumünster sentenced the operator of a fitness studio to a one thousand Euros fine and thus agreed with Kelly Laubinger, a Sintica from Neumünster. She had suspected that she was denied membership of the fitness studio because of her last name – Laubinger which is a name that many Sinti bear. She hopes that her recent court victory will encourage others to take action against inequality.
The Delegation of Ethnic Minorities presented a program for the Day of the Andalusian Gypsies. The Andalusian Roma Day, is celebrated on November 22.
DE 
EN 
FR