Tag Archives: Racism

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Street Music in Croatia

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Street Music in Croatia

While in European cities street music is considered part of urban culture and a meeting of different traditions, the debate about banning Roma musicians has reopened in Croatia. In a statement to the Novosti portal, the President of the Roma Association in the Republic of Croatia Suzana Krčmar warns that this does not only call into question playing on the street, but also the acceptance of cultural diversity. She raises the question of whether the ban applies to all street musicians or only to Roma, since foreign and domestic popular music is performed without any problems in the cities.

The article continues by saying that Suzana Krčmar avoided emphasizing that the Roma who played or tried to play in Croatian cities are citizens of Serbia.

Bad.

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Roma, Music, and a Mayor

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Roma, Music, and a Mayor

A huge number of articles in the Croatian press about the mayor of the town of Sinj, Miro Bulj who removed removed the Roma orchestra from the public space on Christmas Eve, even though they played the since years at Christmas. The mayor explained that they were singing “Đurđevdan”, and that it was inappropriate for Christmas Eve, and that anyhow, they were not authorised to play in public. A video contradict this, as it shows him gesturing towards the musicians to leave.

Prior to that, the orchestra played among the gathered citizens, without any visible incident.

Well, depending how you pronounce this mayor’s name, it means an ass in Romanes.

Kosovo News Eastern Europe

Kosovo and Racial Discrimination

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Kosovo and Racial Discrimination

Institutions and Civil Society Unite Against Racial Discrimination during the Kosovo Regional Summit where they reaffirmed the commitment to combating racial discrimination and promoting the inclusion of Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian communities.

The Regional Summit Against Racial Discrimination, held in Pristina for the sixth time, emphasized institutional cooperation with civil society to promote inclusive policies and strengthen mechanisms to combat discrimination, particularly against Roma, Ashkali, and Egyptian communities.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany, Police, and Roma

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Germany, Police, and Roma

Sinti and Roma are frequently subjected to prejudice and discrimination by the police, according to a report. The Reporting and Information Center on Antigypsyism (MIA) analyzed 215 cases reported by victims between 2020 and 2024 for the report presented in Berlin on Thursday.

According to the report, Sinti and Roma often report that their complaints are not recorded by the police, and that incidents are downplayed or denied. Investigations against police officers following complaints are reportedly dropped. In some cases, victims who file a complaint themselves become the target of investigations. The study evaluates hundreds of allegations of discrimination against Roma and Sinti by the police. The spectrum ranges from reports not being recorded to violence – even at a children’s birthday party. Experts are calling for recognition of institutional problems within police departments.

Austria News Western Europe

Austria and Racism

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Austria and Racism

A special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council criticized the lack of awareness of racism in Austria following a visit there. “There is a widespread reluctance to fully acknowledge the existence of racism,” Indian political scientist Ashwini K. P. told the APA news agency on Monday at the UN headquarters in Vienna. She clearly stated her opposition to the planned headscarf ban for girls, arguing that it would reinforce prejudices.

She had also received “disturbing reports and accounts” of discrimination against Roma and Sinti. She was also “deeply concerned” about the increase in anti-Semitic incidents.

Croatia News Eastern Europe

Femicide and Racism in Croatia

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Femicide and Racism in Croatia

in Sitnice, in Northern Croatia close to Slovenia, a man shot two women, killing one, and leaving the other severely wounded in hospital. The two young women were shot in their home in a Roma settlement.

The mayor of Mursko Središće stated that the Sitnice Roma settlement is one of the safest in the country.

A large number of Croats, especially from Međimurje, reacted with hate speech in comments on social networks, without any sympathy for the young woman who lost her life, mocking the Roma and calling for their murder or extermination and the abolition of social assistance.

This is a classic example of femicide, which is a growing problem worldwide, including in Croatia.

News Switzerland

Switzerland: Racist Police

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Switzerland: Racist Police

The RTS, the French speaking Swiss television channel published the content of some 2,500 pages of internal WhatsApp conversations within the Lausanne police force. The analysis reveals a shocking extent of discriminatory and extremist remarks.

Blacks, Roma, Moslems, Jews, all is included in these racist statements, going as far as mentioning the Nazis of the KKK. And this is a municipal police force in Switzerland.

Sad.

News Switzerland

Swiss Media and Roma

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Swiss Media and Roma

The Swiss Press Council decided in two cases we brought to their attention that Journalists of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and on 20 Minuten.

The «Neue Zürcher Zeitung» violated points 3 (sources) and 8 (prohibition of discrimination) of the «Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Journalists» with the article «North Africans have little to fear» and the corresponding online article. In that article, the journalist said about North African criminals: “contrary to Roma, they are not organised in criminal clans”.

With its article “Protection status S: Resentment over abuse by Roma grows” of February 12, 2024, «20 Minuten» violated points 1 (truth), 3 (withholding important information) and 8 (discrimination) of the «Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Journalists».  This article pretty much was stating that Roma refugees from the Ukraine abused the Swiss Asylum, and that many were not even Ukraininas or had false papers.

News Eastern Europe Serbia

Serbia, Journalists, and Roma

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Serbia, Journalists, and Roma

In light of recent developments in media, when it comes to insulting and belittling the Roma community, journalists and Roma activists in Serbia have initiated a meeting that would open a space for discussion with the most important institutions. The idea is to jointly review the current situation and find effective mechanisms for responding to the increasingly frequent cases of hate speech and discrimination.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

School and “Migrants”

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School and “Migrants”

Apparently, in the Maribor region of Slovenia, people are moving their children towards schools with less migrant children. The numbers are telling a more differentiated story: 9,400 students this school year, with 1,325 children from abroad. Most come from Bosnia and Herzegovina (488), followed by students from Kosovo (326), Ukraine (196) and Serbia (100). Individual students also come from more distant countries, such as Burundi, Bangladesh, Estonia and Sierra Leone.

What is clearly racist though is the next topic: Roma…  “We have a lot of immigrant and Roma students,” explains Damjan Pihler, the principal of the Franceta Prešerna Elementary School. The number of Roma students in Maribor schools is around four percent and has not changed significantly in recent years. “This year, our school is attended by 27 Roma students and 30 children from abroad who are enrolled in a Slovenian school for the first time. We had the same number of immigrant students last year – that is, 60 children in two years whose mother tongue is not Slovenian.”

So basically, Roma from Slovenia are migrants …

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Slovakia and the Roma Action Plan

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Slovakia and the Roma Action Plan

The Roma media house will probably not be implemented in the near future. The project, which was part of the action plans for the Strategy for Equality, Inclusion and Participation of Roma by 2030 for the years 2025-2027, does not appear in the draft of the updated document. The changes in the action plans are currently the subject of a comment procedure.

The new plan doesn’t focus on anti-Roma racism but on employment and integration. How will this work?

News Eastern Europe Slovakia

Roma, Heating, and Racism

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Roma, Heating, and Racism

Pavol Ľupták, member of the Slovak parliament raised his hand to ask for space to speak at yesterday’s parliamentary committee on finance and budget, no one probably expected what the deputy would say.

“Some Gypsy steals firewood and gets support for it,” Ľupták was indignant at the committee. “I walk around a Gypsy settlement, and I see on the cart that they steal such (large) logs from the forest, living trees. Support for heating also means supporting the theft of Gypsies,” the coalition member claimed.

His comments were widely condemned, but unfortunately are also widely believed by many in that country.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia, Roma, and Cars

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Slovenia, Roma, and Cars

On Friday, the Roma in Krško, Slovenia, convened a meeting with the police, due to the increasing number of vehicles confiscated from Roma recently. They were told, among other things, that they were not hunting Roma, but debtors.

Really?

  • Iščemo odgovore: So res na udaru romski avti? Deklice noseče, mi molčimo? In: Svet24 TV. 16.11.2025.https://svet24.si/lokalno/dolenjska/novice/najbolj-brano-tedna-zaseg-avtomobilov-mladoletne-romske-mamice-1861568#google_vignette
News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Slovenia: Scary

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Slovenia: Scary

Silva Mesojedec sent a letter to the Domovina editors in which he presents his eleven-point analysis of the state of the Roma issue, its causes and possible solutions. To quote her letter:

1964: 64 Roma lived in Žabjak (census of Roma in Dolenjska).

1971: the study mentions 37 Roma families and 200 Roma.

1984: 214 Roma are mentioned.

2014: there are about 700 Roma.

Today, the number is around 1,000 Roma.

Until 1984, the state at least systematically monitored the number. Then – nothing more. This is not a coincidence, but evidence of a completely wrong attitude towards the Roma issue: if you don’t measure the problem, you don’t solve it either. There are no statistics, no strategy, no responsibility.

In brief, Roma multiply. Ever had doubts about statistics? 10% of the population in the Balkan are Roma. The 64 in 1964 was an illusion …

Germany News Western Europe

Z-Word

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Z-Word

Timur Husein, a CDU representative in Berlin and the speaker for antisemitism in the Berlin Parliament, is being criticised for a tweet using the Z-word and really playing with stereotypes. He said, regarding the SPD candidate for mayor of the city:

LINKE-Bürgermeisterkandidatin @ElifEralpBerlin will, dass alle illegalen Sinti & Roma (Zigeuner) aus dem Ausland in Deutschland bleiben dürfen (so im Neuen Deutschland). Neuer Pull-Faktor für weitere illegale Zuwanderung! Um das zu verhindern, am 20.9.2026 CDU wählen!

Left Party mayoral candidate @ElifEralpBerlin wants all illegal Sinti and Roma (Gypsies) from abroad to be allowed to stay in Germany (according to Neues Deutschland). This would create a new pull factor for further illegal immigration! To prevent this, vote CDU on September 20, 2026!

This politician doesn’t even know that outside of Germany, France, and Italy, there are no Sinti (or so few that it doesn’t matter).

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Racism in Sports

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Racism in Sports

The police is investigating an incident in which fans of the LHK Jestřábi Prostějov hockey club chanted racist slogans and sang a song with hateful lyrics in Hodonín (Czechia) on Saturday, November 8, 2025. According to the police, an anti-conflict team intervened on the spot and stopped the illegal actions. The police are investigating the case.

News Eastern Europe Slovenia

Harassment?

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Harassment?

On Saturday, October 25, 2025, the police officers of the Laško Police Station in Slovenia were informed of alleged threats at the Hotemež collection centre (Radeče municipality, ed.). A woman called the Operational Communications Centre and reported that a person of Roma appearance was threatening an employee and harassing visitors to the centre.

Police officers were dispatched to the scene and found that five people of Roma ethnicity were in the collection center. After completing the procedure, they found that no violation of public order and peace had occurred. The police carried out the identification procedure and collected the necessary information, and no additional measures were necessary.

Germany News Western Europe

Germany and Racism

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Germany and Racism

The Higher Regional Court Thürigen (OLG) has decided not to open the case against Bengt Fuchs, Vice President of the Gera Administrative Court, on charges of incitement to hatred.

The Gera Public Prosecutor’s Office indicted Fuchs in April 2025. The indictment stemmed from a Facebook post in which he referred to members of the Sinti and Roma community as “rotating Europeans with a weakness in property rights.” The Public Prosecutor’s Office considered this to constitute the offense of incitement to hatred under Section 130 of the German Criminal Code (StGB).

Well, this is racism.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

On the Election Campaign

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On the Election Campaign

The portrayal of migrants in Toni Okamura’s SPD election campaign is similar to how members of other races and social classes were portrayed in Nazi and communist propaganda, the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) said. In today’s decision, it was critical of the SPD campaign, but it still rejected the complaint of a voter from the Central Bohemian Region. It failed to prove grossly influencing the election result, which is a condition for possible court intervention. According to the NSS, the SPD campaign speaks more about the movement itself, other parties could have reacted to it and voters ultimately made up their own minds. The decision is temporarily available on the official noticeboard.

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe

Fake

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Fake

The allegations of an 11 years old gadži whereby she had been brutally aggressed by Roma prompted a wave of racism against Roma.

She lied …

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