Kali Sara Festival

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On Saturday, May 18, Letňany in Prague became the scene of the first ever Kali Sara Roma festival. The festival attracted hundreds of visitors and offered a rich program full of traditional Roma music, dances and culinary specialties.

Vera Bila

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The world-famous Romani singer Věra Bílá recently appeared on the iconic John Lennon wall in Kampa, Prague. This was done by the Roma artist Ladislav Mucha, who performs under the pseudonym Maxim Muchow. In a report for ROMEA TV, he drew a portrait of Věra Bílá on this iconic wall as a tribute to this Roma music legend.

Lety

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On Sunday, May 12, 2024, the memorial to the Roma Holocaust at the site of the concentration camp in Lety u Písek was opened to the public. Three decades of debates about the nature of the place, which used to be a pig farm, were thus concluded.

But the reality of the perpetrators was not acknowledged for a very long time. The participation of Czech gendarmes and camp commanders in the genocide of the Roma during the Second World War was denied throughout the forty years of communism.

The taboo was broken after the revolution by historian Ctibor Nečas and journalist Markus Pape, and courageous activists from the ranks of the Roma and Sinti also played their part. For example, Jan Hauer, Antonín Lagryn and Čeněk Růžička, mostly sons of Lety prisoners, who also told about the fates of their parents and their own for the Memory of the Nation.

Bosnia and Exclusion

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Around 400 Roma live in Mostar. Excluded from a very young age due to lack of support from the education system and the government, they suffer discrimination and prejudice. A double punishment for these citizens who fight every day for their inclusion.

Italy and Discrimination

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The decision made public on May 13, 2024 by the European Committee of Social Rights of the Council of Europe, which unanimously concluded that Italy had committed serious and systematic violations of the European Social Charter with regard to housing situation of Roma communities, must herald a change in Italy’s discriminatory policies on access to housing, Amnesty International said.

French Chronicle …

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Not much in the news. A fire in a camp near Angers, in the Loire Valley and in Bordeaux, Roma go to court to prevent an expulsion.

Roma Settlements

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Osada, the Slovak name of Roma settlements, are slowly changing. Here the story of new hairdresser in a new house in the settlement in Medzev, Eastern Slovakia.

More on May 16th

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Two articles on the Roma resistance day and the commemoration in Auschwitz of the resistance of Roma inmates.

May 16th

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On Thursday, Roma honoured the memory of the Roman inmates who rebelled in the so-called “Zigeunerlager” that was part of the German KL Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The president of the Roma Association in Poland, Roman Kwiatkowski, emphasized that through their actions they retained human dignity.

International Program on Genocide

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The Museum of Polish Jewish History is announcing recruitment for an international program dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti. The program is addressed to educators and museologists from the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland. Applications are due by May 30th.

The program will last from June to October 2024 and will include two study visits in Brno and Berlin and a series of online meetings. Working in international groups, participants will develop educational ideas related to the commemoration of the Holocaust of Roma and Sinti, which they will present to a wider audience during an online event at the end of the program.

Ukrainian Roma Refugees in Poland

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Ewelina Bosak from the W Stroną Dialogu Foundation  stated that 87 Roma from Ukraine are camping in the waiting room of the railway station in Przemyśl. There were 44 people there on Sunday, and on Thursday morning there were 87. Most of them were children, the youngest of whom is eight months old. There is also a pregnant woman and a man with cancer.

Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Switzerland

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The Bulgarian press took the statements of the head of the Asylum system in the Canton of Bern for truth: That Roma used faked Ukrainian papers to abuse the Swiss Asylum system. The title is as false and racist: “Roma flock to Switzerland for aid with fake Ukrainian passports.” The picture used is also not relevant, as it shows carriages, which is definitively not the mean of travel chosen by the Ukrainian Roma who ask for asylum in Switzerland.

Czechia: Mediation

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A round table, attended by representatives of the police, as well as the local Roma and Ukrainian communities, together with the mayor Lukáš Seifert and the representative for the Roma minority Lucie Fuková, took place in the Knight’s Hall of the Vlašské dvor in Kutná Hora. The aim of the meeting was to calm the tense situation after the recent attack by a Ukrainian of a Rom between, which culminated in a Roma demonstration on Palackého náměstí with a parade on Masarykova Street.

Fico and his Attacker

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Apparently, the person who shot the Slovak Prime Minister yesterday is a writer from a small town in central Slovakia who has also published racist statements against Roma.

Czechia and Roma

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According to social worker Jiřina Somsiová, the vast majority of the Roma are socially excluded in the Olomouc Region. Only the lucky few, who came to the Czech Republic immediately after the war, live in their own appartments. Those who immigrated later, typically from Slovakia, have no chance to find or rent normal housing and are therefore dependent on overcrowded hostels. Jiřina Somsiová, a field social worker with thirty years of experience is also the co-founder of the Community of Roma in Moravia.

Czechia: Project

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A project called “Everyone Together”, supported by Norwegian funds, lasted two and a half years in Tábor, Czechia. It enabled more insight in the relationship between the Roma and the majority population in Tábor and into the problems of the Roma. Around six hundred of them live in the town of Tabor which has 34 thousand inhabitants. However, it is clear from the results of surveys, polls and analyses, that a lot of work still needs to be done.

Lety: Interview

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An interview with Karolina Spielmannová from the Museum of Roma Culture in Brno about why it took 30 years to be finally able to open the memorial on the site of the former concentration camp of Lety.

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