Tag Archives: Ghetto

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria and Roma Settlements

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Bulgaria and Roma Settlements

Employees of “ViK – Smolyan” in central Bulgaria, together with police teams, carried out a massive inspection in the Roma neighbourhood of Ustovo, known as “Second Kilometre”. The reason was suspicion of illegal connection to the water supply network.

They found illegal connections. On the other hand, as the municipalities refuse to acknowledge the existence of these Roma neighbourhood, their inhabitants have no other means than illegally tap water and electricity.

Bad.

Italy News Western Europe

Roma Camp in Naples

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Roma Camp in Naples

A tendentious article about Roma camps in Naples. The reality is described correctly, the background is totally ignored. Why Roma were parked in segregated camps overseen by the police, why the mafia was involved in this, and now, again, there is collective guilt of all Roma.

Italy News Western Europe

Italy and Roma

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Italy and Roma

An article about the fact that parking Roma in camps or razing them is not going to resolve the issue and will not bring children to school. In fact, most children in those camps do not go to school at all.

Bad, but nothing new in Italy.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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French Chronicle …

In Besançon, in Eastern France, the Roma community commemorated the 13th of June marking the expulsion of Roma from Kosovo in 1999. In Toulouse, in the Southwest of France, a camp that has been standing for 19 years will soon be closed. 130 Romanian Roma families will lose their houses.

Finally, an article about racism in France that seems to be less prevalent than expected. Racism seems to go together with the fear of migrants.

Bulgaria News Eastern Europe

Bulgaria, Zaharna Fabrika, and Art

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Bulgaria, Zaharna Fabrika, and Art

The interdisciplinary cultural project “Dom” presents the reality of marginalized children in Bulgaria through the means of painting and video. The project is of a documentary nature, and the goal is to draw attention to the impact of the social environment on children and the place they occupy in it.

Initially, the fields of research were the Roma Mahalas in Svoge and Stolipinovo in Plovdiv, but after the events surrounding the destroyed houses in the “Zaharna Fabrika” district in Sofia, where Roma houses were recently destroyed, they decided to include them in their project.

News Eastern Europe Poland

Poznan: Roma Ghetto

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Poznan: Roma Ghetto

There is a Roma settlement on Lechicka Street in Poland, a real ghetto. Fires often occur there, mostly due to the accumulated garbage. The Poznań City Office has been demanding that it be cleaned up for several years. As reported by Radio Poznań, city officials went to inspect. Apparently, the owner of the land, who is staying in the United States, has already been fined 4 times, amounting to several dozen thousand złoty. It seems that enforcing the clean-up is difficult.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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French Chronicle …

Only one significant news in the French press this week, with Jean Baptiste Borsali, the mayor of the town of Le Bourget, near Paris, asking the interior minister to evacuate two camps of Roma in this town. The mayor reports “insistent and sometimes aggressive begging”, an “increase in burglaries and snatch thefts”, a “growing sense of insecurity”, an “uncontrollable proliferation of pests despite pest control efforts” and “streets and sidewalks littered with rubbish from systematic garbage rummaging”.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Lunik IX and Education

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Lunik IX and Education

Michaela Cingeľová, a unique teacher who decided to go to teach at the Ľudmila Podjavorinská Elementary School in Luník IX four years ago. This is one of the most notorious ghettos in Slovakia.

 In addition, she founded a project in her hometown that makes Roma children look forward to going to school on Saturdays.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Roma and Czechoslovak Socialism

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Roma and Czechoslovak Socialism

Efforts to resolve the issue of coexistence between the Roma community and the majority society started with the newly established independent Czechoslovak Republic in 1918. State policy was primarily bureaucratic and repressive in nature. After 1948 and the rise of the communist party, the position of the Roma in Czechoslovakia deteriorated significantly. This situation then escalated further during the era of so-called normalization. The socialist regime tried unsuccessfully to assimilate the Roma minority.

The article dwell on travellers, of which there were very few in the region, but does not speak much about the resettlement after the war.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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French Chronicle …

In Nantes, in Western France, the city is closing one of the largest Roma slums where more than 1’000 people live and is trying to re-lodge them. Near Paris, volunteers are catching stray cats on the site of a former Roma camp. The festival “A month for Roma” is closing with conferences and various activities. Unfortunately, they always speak of Travellers…

Finally, several articles on a reportage on the M6 channel filmed in a Roma camp. This reportage also showed that many of the residents of this camp work as day-labourers for farmers …

Italy News Western Europe

Rome: Roma Camp Closure

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The Roma camp located in Via Cesare Lombroso in Rome was closed. 33 families lived ther with a total of 145 people, more than a third of whom were children. All the inhabitants of the camp were relocated and the cleaning operations were carried out without recourse to public force. Six families were housed independently, the other 27 were housed partly in social housing and partly in other housing solutions. The Mayor of Rome, Roberto Gualtieri, announced the operation this morning: “Today – he said – is a historic day. For the first time in the history of Rome, this operation is taking place without an eviction order and without recourse to public force.”

It took time …

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

The Roma Problem

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Another article about the Roma “problem” in Slovenia.

he mayor of Ribniška, Samo Pogorelc, said that in Ribnica, there are approximately 220 Roma who live in three illegal settlements. Half of them have registered permanent residence in Ribnica Municipality. Only two Roma are employed. Children attend kindergarten and school, but with high absenteeism, and they generally leave  school in the 6th grade. According to municipal employees, the situation is alarming.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and Marginalised Roma Communities

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An editorial on the disastrous conditions faced by some segregated Roma settlements in Slovakia. The author cites that it is totally unacceptable that people live in conditions of the 15th (sic!) century. He also states that nothing has been done in the last 20 years, and that segregated education is not acceptable either.

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

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A Czech reportage on the notorious Lunik IX Roma housing estate outside of Košice, Slovakia. According to the reportage, an average of 12 people live in each of the flats of the estate.

The article also recalls how this ghetto was created: Originally, there were both Roma and others living there. Ut from 1995 onward, the city relocated Roma from the centre to the estate, and non-Roma to the centre. In addition, people who did not pay their rent were also relocated there. So, effectively, the population in Lunik IX is almost entirely Roma.

France News Western Europe

French Chronicle …

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The usual this week in the French news. The story of a camp that is slated for demolition on the outskirts of Nantes, in Western France; finally, a short respite for another camp near Strasbourg.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Roma “Problem”

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Over last weekend there was a shooting in the Roma settlement Kerinov Grm in the area of the Krško Municipality. While the police intervened and wanted to detain one of the suspects, residents of the local settlement threw stones at the police car.

The former Director General of the Police, Anton Olaj, believes that “the government’s lack of readiness to systematically regulate the Roma issue is reflected in the escalation of violence”. At the same time, he calls on the government to “present the promised softer and “better” solutions to the public after the rejection of the legal initiative of the eleven mayors of SE Slovenia”.

This is a recurring theme in Slovenia and of course populists are on the forefront.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia and a Kindergarten

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Less than a month ago, the Roma settlement of Dobruška Vas in the municipality of Škocjan was left without a kindergarten. It was set on fire by a stranger, and the fire completely destroyed the structure. Fires are apparently common in the mentioned settlement, but the the municipality nevertheless decided to build a new kindergarten. According to the mayor Jože Kapler, they hope that it will be in ready in May.

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