Accusations against Baylor withdrawn

We received a letter from the student apologizing and taking responsibility for this situation. If this is true, then I personally apologize to the folks at Baylor. We have never had someone report a situation like this that has not been true. This is the first time someone has reported something and then taken it back. I hope this doesn't reflect negatively on the efforts of NRADO and the other groups that were involved in this.

See the letter from the student below along with my response.

"I am Joy Fattori-Hudson. My email was posted without my knowledge. I was naive about that. I can understand Dr. Hancock's reaction. I did not intend for it (not me) to accuse Dr. Paul Sands of academic misdemeanor . . . he did not grade my paper and that was the issue.

It was that one single action of not grading it that lead to all kind of conlusions being drawn (both myself and Dr. Hancock). I changed it and ommited most of the Romani References; but I feel he never intentionally meant to be hurtful to anyone or any peoples.

I did not know until Paul sent me the internet addresses where it had been discussed out there and in what format. In fact it had been discussed without my knowledge. There have been too many mistakes made and I am not arrogant enough to think I was not in some kind of error on this matter. So I apologise to Paul and to Baylor and my beloved Truett for any such upset caused. I also apologise to the Romani community for involving them in this situation which I had not intended.

But, I would ask that the Romany Holocaust not be ignored or hidden . . . it is too important. My grandmother and mother were Romanichals and I am one quarter Romani. If Hitler had made it to Britain I would not be alive today! I love my heritage it makes me brave and strong . . . but also tempered in compassion.

So let us all out there let go of this and accept that mistakes were made all around and that there was no intentionality for any of this to happen. Paul Sands is a fine teacher and I am sure will learn some valuable lessons as will I from this issue.

It is New Years Eve

Let 2010 be a year we all learn how to be more sensitive, more compassionate and more accepting of the differences. I will go ahead and modify the paper and get it published for all to enjoy and I am sure it will further the Romani Holocaust situation in doing so. I feel this will be both pleasing to Dr. Hancock, to my Romani roots, yet also pleasing to Dr. Sands and the Baylor community.

Let everyone have a blessed and joyous 2010."

my response:

Dear Joy,
If this is true and you exaggerated this situation which is what I get from this, I hope you know how much trouble this caused and time that was wasted. Do you realize that? We are quick to support those who ask for it and we have never to date had to worry about being wrong and having someone come back and say, "sorry never mind it was my fault". We have never falsely accused someone of what we accused those at Baylor of doing because in most cases when people come to us it is true. This just looked bad for everyone!In the future before you make these kinds of accusations again, I would seriously think about it. Otherwise you are doing exactly the opposite of supporting our efforts as you are taking us away from real issues that deserve our support.

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response

WITHDRAWN "IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED-Write a letter to Baylor president in protest!"

Withdrwan-IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED

PLEASE SEE NEW POST REGARDING THIS ISSUE. WE left this intact so you can see the original issue.

Professor Ian Hancock, received a letter (below) from a student named Joy Fattori-Hudson at Baylor University. She submitted a paper regarding the the fate of Romanies in the Holocaust. The professor refused to accept it because it dealt with Romanies. His name is Dr. Paul Sands, a theologian. I wrote to him and he replied

“I'm afraid that FERPA (the Family Education Rights & Privacy Act) does not allow me to speak with you about this matter. I applaud your work on behalf of the Romani people. May the truth be told and justice prevail -- at last. Cordially, Paul Sands.” Paul_Sands@baylor.edu

Please (PLEASE!) e-mail a protest to the president of Baylor, his address is david_garland@baylor.edu

We will also be pursuing this further.

ORIGINAL LETTER

Dear Professor Hancock,

I did not reply earlier because I ended up having a serious problem with my Holocaust Paper. My professor would not even grade it and told me it had to be rewritten. He did not like the subject matter.

I looked at the guidelines (one and half lines long) and it was okay . . . it was radical because it looked at how people hide memories that are not convenient such as the number of Romany people and others who also died in the Holocaust.

Anyway, I felt unable to argue . . . though I did try . . . I rewrote my paper leaving out almost all references to the Romany slaughter and got an A for it. I felt the original paper was the better paper even after re-reading it.

I remain unable to say anything until after I graduate, which I will on Friday.

There is something that still pervades about the Romany holocaust that people just simply do not want to know.

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protest

Imminent camp clearance of 700 Roma citizens in ethnic cleansing operation

“Imminent camp clearance of 700 Roma citizens who live in the camp, including seriously ill members and 300 children. It is an ethnic cleansing operation. An appeal to the European Commission, the council of Europe and the United Nations High Commissioner”.


“News has just reached us that the Italian authorities have decided to clear the Casilino 900 Roma settlement in Rome within the next three weeks”, say Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau the co-presidents of the human rights organization EveryOne Group. “The Casilino 900 camp is the oldest Roma settlement in the capital.

The families (a total of about 700 people) have lived in the city for the last 40 years, after fleeing from the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The Roma live in disastrous health and sanitary conditions without any kind of assistance programme”, say the activists. “In recent years the institutions have spread terrible ideologies inspired by sentiments of racial hatred towards the Roma people of the Casilino 900 camp, accusing them of antisocial behaviour and being genetically inclined to commit crime”.

Recently, the European Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, described the living conditions and the marginalization in which 300 children, pregnant women and many sick people were forced to live in as “intolerable”. “In spite of the marginalization, the prejudice and the numerous episodes of racism they are subjected to,” continue Malini, Pegoraro and Picciau, “the inhabitants who are able to are constantly in search of work and possibilities of integration.

The imminent camp clearance represents all that is irresponsible and inhuman, because the Comune di Roma has prepared no alternative lodgings or assistance for these soon-to-be-homeless people; no schooling programmes for the children; no support for the most dramatic social and medical cases; and no plans to keep families together - seeing family unity is fundamental in the Roma tradition. What is more, this clearance operation could put the health of Down Syndrome children at serious risk, as well as those suffering from heart problems, people receiving treatment with drugs and dialysis patients.

Several cancer patients live in the camp (who are undergoing cycles of chemotherapy) and both mentally and physically handicapped people. “The conditions they are forced to live in”, say the representatives of EveryOne, “make it difficult for the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations to provide support, According to Dr. Maurizio Di Marzio, (who is in charge of the camper van that has supplied health and social support to the Roma people in the Asl RmB area since 1999) inside the camp are many cases of TB, hepatitis, infectious skin diseases, gastro-intestinal problems and burns, particularly in children.

A camp clearance now, (especially in these freezing winter temperatures) would be a death sentence for the sick and the more vulnerable members of the camp, and a humanitarian crisis of incalculable proportions for all the others. In 2008, some delegations from the European Parliament and the EU Commission visited the camp. At the time the delegations reported the disastrous conditions of marginalization, the poverty and humanitarian crisis the camp’s inhabitants were forced to live in.

Despite this, the Rome authorities and the Italian authorities in general, did nothing at all to improve the situation and, in fact have allowed the Casilino camp to appear more and more like a Polish ghetto in the years of the Holocaust.

In any other civilized country”, concludes the human rights group, “the situation and problem of the Casilino 900 camp would have been tackled from the humanitarian point of view, not from a political or “public safety” point of view.

Instead, it is necessary to build a modern village, with full facilities on the present site, or on another suitable site. As an alternative, the institutions could supply lodgings and initiate an efficient schooling-employment programme, while offering social support to the sick, handicapped and the most vulnerable members of the community.

Unfortunately, the Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, seems to be much more worried about banning demonstrations and protest sit-ins (to be organized by the humanitarian organizations in the event of ethnic cleansing operation in the camp) than in saving human lives.

We hope that the European Commission and Council will intervene rapidly, and if necessary take action and proceedings against the Italian authorities’ decision to clear the Casilino 900 camp without offering its inhabitants a dignified alternative.

It is also important that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights takes a determined stance against this proposed ethnic purge. EveryOne Group, the Them Romano Association, the European antiracist organization United, and the network of human rights associations will adopt every kind of civilized and non-violent action to prevent this humanitarian disaster and safeguard the fundamental rights of over 700 human beings already weakened by a long and terrible period of apartheid and persecution”.

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roma

FACTORY of DEATH

At about 7 a.m. on the morning of February 25th in Pesaro (Italy), about 20 officers, (regular police and municipal police) entered the abandoned factory situated in Via Fermo, 49, where 30 Romanian Roma have been living for the last year.


Among them patients being treated at San Salvatore Hospital for heart problems and tumours; many women and nine minors, including a few-month-old baby. The authorities gave the order to clear the abandoned factory where the roma were living and dispersed the families.

Virgil Caldarar, one of the two Roma children who will never be born. They died in their mothers womb during (or immediately after) the tragic clearance. These are not isolated cases, because the endless camp clearances without any offer of alternative housing lead to deaths and humanitarian tragedies every year.


EveryOne Group met the parents of the babies and recorded their story in the hope that this umpteenth case of abuse the Roma people are subjected to does not go unnoticed.


Interview transcription:

We have lived here for a year without any trouble, we clean car windscreens for a living. That is our job, we are quiet people. Yes, they were armed, like a gang. I don't know why they came here. They could have just come and told us we couldn't stay here any more. My wife was very frightened. She was distraught, and the result was that we lost our baby. I may be poor, but I wanted that baby.


If the police hadn't turned up, things would have been all right. We had been at the factory for a year and nobody had ever said anything. But that day the police came. I don't know why. On February 25th a lot of policemen came to the factory in Via Fermo. They came early in the morning and forced all the families to remain inside, then they asked to see our papers. There were a lot of them, 30 or 20 policemen. They wanted to take my 4-year old daughter and put her in an institute until she was 18. I didn't want that to happen. I would rather have died than lost my child. Just imagine how a mother feels if she can't see her daughter again until she is 18. So I fled with my daughter, and I was three months pregnant. This episode led to me miscarrying.


I was terrified, and so was my sister. Then we fled to Rome and we were both ill. We had nowhere to sleep, for two days. Then we went back to Romania. I felt ill on the bus too. I spent two nights on the bus travelling back to Romania. Then in Romania I found out I'd lost the baby. If the police hadn't arrived, the pregnancy would have gone ahead. I'd even had a sonogram done. I'd done everything. We were going to call it Michele.


I collect a bit of money for my family here. I send 20 or 30 euros back to Romania to support them. Because our home country is not a good place, if it had been, I would have stayed there with my children. The police... and what happened... I was so scared. The stress... the fright. I slept out in the open for 2 nights, on the ground. I caught cold, I was in pain. I was very ill all the way to Romania. I was in hospital for three days in Romania. I'd suffered a miscarriage. The police knew she was expecting a baby, I told them so myself. I said: "My wife is expecting a baby and she sleeps in here. I have a place to sleep here with my wife". But they told me they didn't care, that we had to leave the factory. We had to leave and my wife miscarried. I'm really sorry.

On February 25th the police arrived and I was over two months' pregnant. There were a lot of police officers and I was very scared. I fell to the ground and I felt a pain inside my stomach. Then I fled to Rome because I had no place to sleep here as they had sent the police and local authorities, they don't help us here in Pesaro. When the police arrived here, they frightened me because they told me they would take my little girl away from me. When I heard that I fled with my daughter. I was expecting another baby. I had to sleep on the floor for days and I caught a cold. When I arrived in Romania I found out I had miscarried. I felt terrible. I felt a pain in my heart. I thought the baby was still alive, like my other two children. That's what I thought. And I thought that God had seen the harm those policemen had done to me.

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romani

It is just sickening

I wanted to post this because it is sickening but sadly, reflects the way people really do feel. This is the very reason we are fighting!

Gypsy Scams
Posted Nov. 25, 2009
Comment on: (Article) World's Worst Travel Scams

I disagree with the recommendations on the Baby Toss & Newspaper Scams. Don't just walk away from Gypsies. The locals in every country & the local police, HATE local Gypsies, with good reason.

Best thing to do is to hit the nearest Gypsy as hard as possible. Kick 'em in the face, the groin, whatever. Doesn't matter if they're kids or females. All Gypsies are trained to steal, so you have every right to protect yourself.

I had one attempt to pull the newspaper scam on me in Madrid...I punched him so hard, I knocked him out. No other passer by took much notice, as I said, they hate Gypsies, so they're happy to see them get a beating.

Link to original article
http://www.travelandleisure.com/comments/7853#

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minorities

Roma girl burnt in neo-Nazi attack leaves hospital - World - Javno

Roma girl burnt in neo-Nazi attack leaves hospital - World - Javno

Posted using ShareThis

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Racial prejudice in the sentences of Naples Juvenile Court against Angelica

Saturday, December 5, 2009, by Alfred Breitman
Racial prejudice in the sentences of Naples Juvenile Court against Angelica, the scapegoat for the hatred towards the Roma people


Naples, December 4th, 2009. News has just reached us of the measure taken by the Juvenile Court of Naples which has denied the concession of any alternative to prison for Angelica V, a young Roma teenager. Angelica was sentenced without proof, merely on prejudice, both in the judgment of first instance, and at the appeal, for the attempted kidnapping of a baby in Ponticelli, a charge brought by the mother in the summer of 2008.


According to the judges, Angelica must remain in jail, and may not be granted house arrest because she is “fully integrated into the typical pattern of behaviour of the Roma culture”. A motivation based solely on racial prejudice, as seen in the rest of the proceedings against the young Roma girl. In the space of just a few days this “decision” has aroused a great deal of concern and has become the subject of two parliamentary questions: that of Rita Bernardini MP and the Senator Annamaria Carloni.


In the summer of 2007 at Montalto di Castro (Viterbo) a young girl of 15 (the same age as Angelica when she was rescued from the lynch mob in Ponticelli) was kidnapped and raped for hours by eight “respectable Italian boys”, all of whom confessed to the crime, and all of them “fully integrated into that typical pattern of behaviour that is slowly becoming our own culture”.


This October, the Rome Juvenile Court, agreed to the proposal put forward by the social workers to suspend the trail and allow the eight rapists to undergo “a test period” for 24 months - their case to be reviewed on March 27th 2012. Over the next two years the members of this gang will be entrusted to the Court social services, which, in collaboration with the services of Montalto di Castro, will include them in a programme of observation, support and control. If the “test period” achieves its aim, the Juvenile Court may then consider the crime extinguished.


It is essential that a great number of people in authority speak out against the motivations given by the Naples Juvenile Court in the Angelica case. Motivations which come on top of a sentence which was just as shocking seeing it was based on testimony full of contradictions and no evidence - if not the medieval prejudice (which over the last few years has raised its ugly head again in Italy) according to which, “gypsies steal children”.

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"Historic churches must play an eminent role in the social inclusion of Roma"

A conference was held in the European Parliament about "The Role of Churches in the Social Inclusion of Roma" hosted by Lívia Járóka MEP. Participants agreed that historic churches might and must play an eminent role in the process of integration.


In her welcome speech Lívia Járóka (Hungarian Civic Union) appreciated the unequalled community building activities the churches pursue in addition to their support in terms of education, catering and housing. According to the MEP, measuring the needs of local communities and getting across smaller scale initiatives are the indispensable prerequisites of the Community Strategy on Roma Inclusion, which is gaining its shape these very months within the EU institutions. "Primarily the poorest people grappling with precarious living conditions and social exclusion are in need of the message of love, and of the guidance based on human dignity, but the poverty affecting the majority of Roma is a serious barrier of community building "Numerous admirable examples show that historic churches can take up the dual challenge: they can simultaneously provide social support and spiritual nutriment, they can assist the mundane existence and in the meanwhile promulgate the message of universal love and by means of their moral calling diminish the prejudices of majority society" - said Járóka.



László Tõkés (MEP and bishop of the Transylvanian Reformed Church) called the social inclusion of Roma a European issue and simultaneously a Hungarian national mission. Tõkés also emphasized that supporting the social inclusion of Roma was the vital interest of the majority society. Pál Schmitt, Vice-President of the European Parliament reminded the audience, that the European People's Party had substantially advocated the inclusion of Roma, since in a Europe that is so proud of its social achievements, it was unacceptable for a minority group of several million people to live in deep poverty. Further speeches were held by János Székely, suffragan bishop of the Esztergom-Budapest Archdiocese, Péter Gáncs, Bishop of the Southern Evangelical Diocese in Hungary, József Barna Nagy, Director of the Missionary Center for Roma in Nagyvárad, Gábor Gelsei, Deanery of the Orthodox Diocese of Hodász, and Géza Dúl, National Roma Referent of the Hungarian Catholic Church, as well as József Hofher and Ulrich Kiss Jesuit priests.



Participants unanimously welcomed that the Lisbon Treaty recognises the identity and specific contribution of Churches and engages on an open, transparent and regular dialogue with them.


Brussels , 2.12.2009.


Further information:

Lívia Járóka: +32 228 47218

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The Discriminatory Law directed at Roma People should immediately be abolished

Regarding the anti-discrimination acts for Roma People, the first step should be to abolish the article 21 of the Law regarding the Residence and Travel of Foreigners in Turkey. According to this law, “The Ministry of Internal Affairs is authorized for the expulsions of the Gypsies, who are stateless or citizens of a foreign state, and of the foreigner nomads, who are not affiliated with Turkish culture”. After this initial step, some more precautions should be taken regarding the issues of discrimination, health, employment and housing.



07/12/2009 - When the last house in Sulukule was bulldozed on 12 November, Gülsüm Bitirmiş, born in 1956, was crying out after her house, where she was born and raised, after her memories and her childhood: “my castle has been demolished”. Meanwhile, the officials of Fatih Municipality had already set off with their truck, loaded with her belongings, which would be put in the storage of the municipality. Later that week, the preparations for the construction of luxurious housings in Sulukule started.

The investor landlord, who would settle in the luxurious housing with an underground parking garage to be built in, where Gülsüm Bitirmiş’s house used to be, probably supports “the expansion of Roma people out of Sulukule”. Likewise, the new owners of the shopping center to be built in where Asım Hallaç’s grocery store used to be before it was bulldozed, probably heaved a sigh of relief when this last Roma resident was displaced out of Sulukule.

Yet, Mr. Bayraktar, the president of Mass Housing Administration, had made promises for the realization of the alternative project and for the relocation of Roma people back to Sulukule. Bayraktar did not keep his promise and worse still, he made some remarks such as “the concern of Sulukule people is not housing”, “We created new rentable areas with the demolitions of gecekondus”. All of the houses in Sulukule, known as the second Roma settlement on earth, were bulldozed and turned into an empty space thanks to the cooperation of public authorities, which, all in all, ignored the human factor. Thousand years old Roma history has been destroyed.

Not Rent but Housing Rights to Roma people

After that Sulukule was turned into an empty land, it is not only the investors, who heaved a sigh of relief. Legitimized with discourses about “urban customs”, “urban culture”, “blighted area” and with that “a modern and healthy urban life is necessity”, “The laundry should not be hang out in the streets”, “people should not sit out at the doorsteps”, “people should not make music in the streets, weddings should not take place in the streets”, the demolitions in Roma neighborhoods – 300 houses in Sulukule, 240 in Küçükbakkalköy and 40 in Yahya Kemal Neighborhood- also comforted some “democrat” literate people, who are in love with Istanbul and lovesick for gated communities.

While the city is being rebuilt in line with their tastes and preferences, everything in the neighborhoods, where Roma people and urban poor used to live for years, was razed down by the bulldozers: the patter of tiny feet, the custom of drinking tea at doorsteps, tea houses and everything. Congratulations to all the ‘Gaco’s, who are ill-at-ease with neighborhood culture and support the displacement of the urban poor to the outskirts of the city: There is not anymore a Roma neighborhood in Istanbul!!

In Küçükbakkalköy, a Roma neighborhood bulldozed in 2006, now a parking garage has started running while legal practitioners have already pushed the button to build their cooperative housings. Some of the displaced Roma residents are still living in barracks or under bridges. Some live in one room housings and try to survive buying and selling scrap materials or selling flowers as long as the municipal police allow them, and try to send their children to school. After their houses were demolished, some of these displaced families set their tents on the side of D-100 highway in Bakırköy. Not taking any notice of the children’s screaming, the municipal police from Bakirköy set the tents of Roma families on fire.

Roma people are in a very harsh struggle, or better to say, have to struggle for their housings and survival. For instance, Zeynep, five-months-old baby of a Roma family, who set their tent on a viaduct after their house was demolished in Kağıthane in November 2006, died because of the cold. Likewise, Gökhan, eigth-months-old baby of another Roma family, which stayed in a half demolished house after their house in Sulukule was razed down, died in 2009 because of lack of good care, because of poverty.

Turkey should participate into the Decade of Roma Inclusion

Unfortunately, Turkey did not participate into the international initiative, the Decade of Roman Inclusion, between 2005-2015, which attempts to solve the problems of Roma community regarding poverty and discrimination. The main aim of the project is making contributions to strengthen the socioeconomic position of Roma people. This project is the first international project aimed at improving the living conditions of Roma people. The countries, which take part in this project, are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia- Montenegro and Slovakia. There is considerable Roma population living in all these countries and they all suffer from poor economic and social conditions. In the year 2005, the governments of all the above mentioned countries declared with this project that they will provide equal opportunities to Roma communities vis-à-vis the rest of the society. Now the turn is ours!

Discriminatory Law should be Abolished

As a very important development, the dishonorable article 134 of the “Regulation about the Police Organization, the duties of the police organization, and the role of the police regarding ceremonies and ensembles and the discipline of the police”, which considered Gypsies as suspects, was abolished by the minister’s approval on 20.06.2006. The next step should be to abolish the article 21 of the Law regarding the Residence and Travel of Foreigners in Turkey, which is a discriminatory legislation. According to this law, “The Ministry of Internal Affairs is authorized for the expulsions of the Gypsies, who are stateless or citizens of a foreign state, and of the foreigner nomads, who are not affiliated with Turkish culture”. Unfortunately, this article, which legalizes discrimination, stands on our way as an unbelievable fact. It is estimated that 100 thousand Roma people, who have no identity cards, live in Turkey. Any step taken for Roma people would probably be of no use unless that this article is abolished. As long as this law is in force, it means that Roma people do not have the right to live in their own country. Besides, the lack of official identification papers should also be resolved in accordance with the demands of Roma families and it must be warranted that their children can participate into the formal education.

After these main steps, more steps should be taken to improve housing, health, employment and education and citizenship rights of Roma people. Regarding these five main issues, below are some of the very practical suggestions that can be implemented immediately:

Citizenship Rights and Discrimination

· Right after abolishing the article I mentioned above, public servants at public institutions and organizations, especially the police and teachers, who are working at the schools that Roma children largely attend, should be subject to a training program regarding the discrimination of Roma People.

· Education programs about discrimination should be implemented.

· Certain sanctions must be applied to written-verbal- visual, any kind of discrimination against Roma people that take place in the media.

· Roma children, who are exposed to discrimination in education, should be identified and the relevant institutions and organizations should be warned about this issue.

· The bureaucratic procedures should be eased for the Roma people without identity cards so that they can get their identity cards. A committee that would work on this issue should be formed.

· Roma families with an income below the poverty line, should be determined by the Social Services and Society for the Protection of Children (SHÇEK) and the local governments.

· Daily milk should be provided to the families with children, which have incomes below the poverty line. Likewise, free food programs should be implemented at the schools (e.g. daily provision of eggs and milk etc.).

· Roma people’s employment in public sector, their participation into political party activities and self- organization should be promoted.

Housing

· Regarding the issue of housing, not the projects that lack an understanding for a multicultural and social life but the alternative projects that are prepared in accordance with the life styles and economic conditions of Roma people should be put into implementation.

· Regarding the urban transformation projects, civil society organizations and opinion leaders in the neighborhoods should be made partners of the projects and be closely involved in the decisions at any phase of the projects.

· Decent housing conditions should be provided for the nomadic and/or settled Roma communities without displacing them from where they live.

· Roma people, who are nomads within the country, should be allowed to stay freely at pre-determined sites and mobile health units should provide services for these sites.

Education

· The children, who don’t or cannot go to schools, should be identified in the Roma neighborhoods with the cooperation of the local governments and civil society organizations. Any assistance should be provided to make sure that they get registered to the schools.

· In every Roma neighborhood, day-care centers, kindergartens and study halls must be established.

· Social aid practices that the Ministry of Education initiated regarding various issues, such as the conditional cash assistance, should be explained well and made public in Roma neighborhoods and the families that would get these aids should be determined by the local governments.

· Scholarship programs for the students should be promoted. Students from low income families should be able to attend free of charge to the private education establishments, which prepare students to various exams.

· For the participation of the children of the nomad Roma communities, into education, local municipalities and the Directorate of Ministry of Education, should cooperate with each other at the places, where the nomad communities are located, and if necessary, children’s education should be supported with mobile education units.

· To contribute to the development of Roma music and culture, education and culture centers should be opened especially in the neighborhoods where musicians live.

· Research about Roma music should be promoted and an academic field for this topic should be formed.

· At the schools, to which Roma children attend, Roma children should be separated from other kids in the classrooms.

Health

· A health clinic must be established in every Roma neighborhood and an urgent health program directed especially at women, children and disabled persons should immediately be started.

· Free training programs for childcare should be provided at houses.

· The children and their families should be informed about vaccinations and when necessary, vaccination programs should be implemented in these neighborhoods.

· Soup kitchens must be opened in the neighborhoods for the elderly and orphan children.

Employment

· For Roma people, various vocational and crafts courses should be provided at the local level.

· Roma community’s traditional fields of occupation should be supported. Besides, employment of Roma people should be encouraged in other sectors.

· Places, where Roma people that sell flowers can work freely without the pressure of the municipal police, should be determined and the municipal police should be warned about this implementation.

· The Roma people involved in buying and selling scrap materials should be allowed to work without the pressure of the municipal police. Free health checks should be provided for these people on monthly basis.

· Workplaces and artists, which employ Roma musicians without any social security, should be warned and regular inspections should be made regarding this issue.

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US Holocaust Museum INTERVIEW ABOUT THE PORRAJMOS, BUT BEGAN BY PROVIDING THEIR OWN NUMBER OF OUR LOSSES.

The Dangers Faced by Roma in Europe Today

Thursday, September 24, 2009

DESCRIPTION:
Rob Kushen, the Managing Director of the European Roma Rights Center, discuss human rights abuses against Roma in Europe today.

TRANSCRIPT:
ARIANA BERENGAUT: Welcome to Voices on Genocide Prevention podcast. This is Ariana Berengaut, your guest host for this week’s episode.

For centuries, Europeans stigmatized the Roma, sometimes referred to as gypsies, as social outcasts and scapegoats. When World War II broke out in 1939, the Nazi regime intensified its persecution of the Roma, transporting them to ghettos and concentration camps across Europe. While it is not known precisely how many Roma were killed in the Holocaust, scholars believe that the Nazis killed up to 220,000 Roma, which was around one-quarter of the entire population of European Roma. We’ve invited Rob Kushen to talk about human rights abuses against Roma in Europe today. Rob Kushen is the Managing Director of the European Rights Roma Centre. Hello, Rob, and thank you for joining our program.

ROB KUSHEN: Thanks for having me, and thanks for covering this subject.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Can you give us some background on the Roma today. Where do they live and what types of discrimination and dangers they continue to face?

ROB KUSHEN: Sure. Well, they are, by most accounts, the largest minority group in Europe. The population numbers are not known with certainty, but the estimates range on the order of 10 to 12 million people and they live throughout Europe. There are large concentrations in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and countries in Eastern Europe. But there are also an estimated 150,000 in Italy, a couple hundred thousand in France and in Germany as well. So they’re pretty much everywhere in Europe. There are some in the United States in addition, and in other parts of the world.

And as far as the kinds of discrimination they face, it is perhaps not quite as serious as the existential threats faced during the Second World War and the Holocaust, but quite serious indeed. And in fact, interesting to note that in the run-up to the European Parliament elections this year, a far right extremist party in the Czech Republic was running television advertisements calling for a final solution to the gypsy problem, deliberately evoking the effort to exterminate Roma as well as Jews during the Second World War.

For the most part, the problems faced by Roma in Europe are, they vary in intensity but they are similar. They face acts of violence, both state sponsored acts of violence, acts of police abuse, as well as violence by private individuals, extremist groups, skinheads and the like. They face deliberate segregation in schools and in housing, discrimination in employment. There is a legacy of coercive sterilization of Romani women, which unfortunately, there are still cases being reported of coercive sterilizations in countries like the Czech Republic and Slovakia. So it’s a wide variety of abuses, a lot of problems connected with forced eviction and being rendered homeless, having their property destroyed, being subject to physical abuse during the course of being forcibly evicted from informal settlements or illegal squats.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Are Roma citizens of the countries that they reside in?

ROB KUSHEN: In some cases yes, and in some cases no and citizenship is certainly an issue for some Roma. There was a great migration of Roma out of the countries of former Yugoslavia and across the borders of countries within the former Yugoslavia as a result of the conflict there in the ’90s. And so you have a number of Roma who either are stateless as a result or have gone to other countries and do not have the citizenship of the country where they reside.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: You mentioned the TV ad in the Czech Republic. Is this sentiment broadly held and accepted sort of nationwide, or are the dangers really posed from far right fringe groups?

ROB KUSHEN: Well I think the far right groups in the Czech Republic, Hungary and elsewhere are, to some extent, reflecting a popular sentiment. To some extent, they are feeding a popular sentiment and kind of reinforcing it as a-- so I think there’s a kind of two-way feedback mechanism. I don’t think that if you poled people in the Czech Republic they would be advocating extermination of the Roma. But on the other hand, when you poll them and ask them if you want to live next to a Roma person, if you want work with a Roma person, if you want your children going to school with Romani children, the majority of citizens will say no. So the underlying discrimination and intolerance toward Roma is a widely held view throughout the region. And, again, I don’t want to just pick on Eastern Europe because the situation in Italy for example is just as bad.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Could you actually speak about the situation for Roma in Italy and particularly the role of the Italian Government in sort of perpetrating the...

ROB KUSHEN: Yes. Well, I think Italy is a very a disturbing situation because precisely of the role of the government. This is a country where a year ago, the government essentially declared Roma a security threat and has dealt with Roma in that context and passed a number of emergency decrees and laws, both at a national level and at municipal levels, to try to stem the flow of Roma into the country, to try to force or persuade Roma to leave the county, and to in general make life very difficult for them. And this is a deliberate government policy which continues unabated to this day. The government has been actively engaged in forcibly destroying Roma settlements, rendering many people homeless. And under the guise of so-called census activity, trying to identify Roma that may not have adequate legal status to remain in Italy and expelling them and trying to create a climate, again, that would discourage any other Roma from other parts of Europe from migrating to Italy.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Has there been any sort of international pressure on Italy to abate...

ROB KUSHEN: There has been some. And the European Roma Rights Centre together with the Open Society Justice Initiative and also the OsservAzione and some other groups in Italy have been pressing the issue and encouraging the European Commission to look at violations of European law that Italy has committed through its laws, policies, and practices directed against Roma. But I would say, up until now, the response from the international community, from other governments in particular, has been weak. And the reason for that is that they-- there’s, I suppose, a certain sympathy both for Italy’s efforts to deal not just with Roma migrants, but with migrants from other countries that are considered undesirable, as well as a specific sympathy with dealing with the Roma. And so I think the response from Europe has not been as strong as it should be.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Has the E.U. provided any sort of guidance?

ROB KUSHEN: No. And that’s, as I said, that’s where we’ve been looking because for example, what Italy is doing calls into question its commitment to allow free movement of European Union citizens. As many of the people, Roma in Italy, first of all, many of them are Italian citizens and they’re being affected as well. But those who are not, many of them are from E.U. member states. And so it does not seem that Italy is interested in living up to its commitments to allow E.U. citizens to come to Italy and live there and work there. It’s also, in our view, violated the commitment to ensure data privacy through its census activity of finger printing and photographing of Roma citizens, and also violated antidiscrimination provisions because their-- many of Italy’s actions are directed specifically at Roma populations. In fact, you know, the laws refer, in many cases, to so-called nomads, which is widely accepted as a term that refers only to Roma. And it preserves the mythology that Roma are not really-- that this is not a settled sedentary population, that these are nomads, which happens to be factually wrong, but also makes clear that the people that Italy is really targeting with many of its actions are Roma.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Have any states been particularly successful at protecting Roma rights?

ROB KUSHEN: Well, I think some states have made strides. I think a number of the Scandinavian countries have done a better job, and they tend to do a better job with addressing the rights of minorities and migrants in addition to the Roma population specifically. I think that in Eastern Europe there’s been a certain amount of progress made in governments adopting at a very high level, broad, policy-- from a broad policy perspective, adopting favorable policies against discrimination and in favor of inclusion and integration. But those policies tend to be ineffective, not implemented, and have little impact.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Are you optimistic for the future, or do you see the overall situation as just deteriorating?

ROB KUSHEN: Well, I suppose if you’re in an advocacy position, you have to be optimistic.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Absolutely.

ROB KUSHEN: But I think that in the short term, the situation is not good. I think it has deteriorated. I think the economic downturn does not help, and it just exacerbates tensions. It makes resource allocation questions much more fraught at the level of domestic politics, and unfortunately, in the last year, in certain countries we’ve seen both a rise of violence and a rise of extremist politics, which is quite disturbing.

ARIANA BERENGAUT: Absolutely. Well thank you so much for your time and for speaking with us today.

ROB KUSHEN: Thank you again for covering the topic. I appreciate the opportunity to let more people know about the issue.

NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about responding to and preventing genocide, join us online at www.ushmm.org/genocide.

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human rights

Lost in Ambiguities – Anti-Gypsyism Remains Rampant

Napoli, November 27-28, 2009 - Policy Center’s intervention during the forum “Fight Against Poverty in Europe and in the World: Towards the European Year 2010 for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion”.

“We are lost in ambiguities. We are lost in a permanent and unproductive exercise of ducking responsibilities between intergovernmental institutions and governments. We, at the Policy Center believe that stakeholders need to say clearly what each of us can do and how are we planning to do it rather than having great speeches with no effect whatsoever.

In concrete terms :the European Commission talks when it comes to Roma mostly about social inclusion, education, housing, health, employment – all good but jurisdiction for all these domains remain with Member States. The only clear EU mechanism to do something is related to anti-discrimination. There is an anti-discrimination Unit within the European Commission and a Fundamental Rights Agency which clearly says for the last years that Roma is the most discriminated ethnic group in the EU. We at Policy Center reported tens of cases of hate-speech against Roma . We are not aware of any reaction of the anti-discrimination Unit related to anti-Gypsyism. We do not know of any letter of concern sent by the head of unit or director general or for that matter by the Fundamental Rights Agency condemning widespread anti-Gypsyism in Romania. We are not aware of any indeed innovative approach which to shock people out of their racism or indifference.

The Policy Center would like the Commission to discuss about its own responsibilities and not to tell us what the situation is like- we do know that. How are the funds for anti-discrimination campaigns used and how can we help to reform or make the existing mechanism of the EU regarding discrimination effective when it comes to Roma issues is in our opinion a much more constructive discussion.

Despite the fact that the European Union has clear commitments and responsibilities on issues regarding discrimination, it still proves to be ineffective in the case of Roma.

Many reports released by EU or NGOs show an increased number of Roma who face discrimination. Prejudice is to be found often in the public speech. The EC has two directives and a special unit for implementing anti-discrimination measures. We do not argue on its willingness to act against Roma discrimination, but there is a large agreement proved by EC reports that there is an obvious lack of efficiency. We need to move beyond rhetoric if we want change. And I am convinced that all of us here do want a change.“

The Policy Center also recommended for the next programming period, that EU should create a special fund for grassroots Roma NGOs that deal with active citizenship, poverty and discrimination.


The meeting in Naples was organized by the European Commission Representation Office in Italy, together with the Municipality of Naples and the Campania Region.

High ranking representatives of the European Commission (vice-president Antonio Tajani), of the European Parliament (vice-president Gianni Pittella) and of the local and regional government have highlighted in the opening speeches the important role of the activities dedicated to eradicating poverty both for the citizens and for the stability of the European edifice. An important intervention was that of professor Guy Standing from the Bath University who described the importance of ensuring a minimum income for everyone in order to increase the involvement of the citizens in the political issues that influence their own lives.

The representative of FEANSTA has pointed out that the EC invests in 2010 in raising awareness on poverty but studies show that Europeans are well aware of the dimensions of poverty in their countries.

For further details about the conference please visit http://ec.europa.eu/italia/news/ue_e_societa_civile/forum_poverta_it.htm

Policy Center was represented by Florin Botonogu

Policy Center for Roma & Minorities
Bucharest, 010152, Intrarea Rigas 29A, Ap. 31, Sect. 1, Romania

Tel : (004) 0742379657 or

Fax (004) 0318177092

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INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY December 10th

URANIA NATIONAL FILM THEATRE Rákóczi út 21, 8th district, Budapest


VIEWS FROM THE GROUND

CHALLENGES TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF ROMA

FROM NAPLES TO THE BOSPHORUS





Screening of Mundi Romani – the World through Roma Eyes/ News Documentaries by Katalin Bársony and from Tatárszentgyörgy to Tatárszentgyörgy by János Joka Daróczi

Key Messages for International Human Rights Day

* Mrs. Magda A. Szabó, Vice-President, Duna Television Hungary

* Ambassador Robert Milders, Kingdom of the Netherlands

* Ambassador Siri Ellen Sletner, Kingdom of Norway

* Ambassador Greg Dorey, United Kingdom

* Jeffrey Levine, Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of the USA

* Nikolaos Vlahakis, First Secretary, Embassy of Greece


Panel Discussion with Hungarian Roma NGOs


Roma in Hungary are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and abuse of their human rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). In Hungary, inter-ethnic tensions have intensified since last year,when more than 50 violent attacks against Roma in Hungary, ranging from heavy beatings in broad daylight to murders by arson or shootings, attacks which the Roma consider are based on racist motives.

The challenge for Hungary’s civil society, its media, its political representatives and representatives of diplomatic missions in the country is to do more to raise the profile of UN human rights standards.

By screening reportages on the situation of Roma in different European countries, each raising specific sets of human rights issues of concern to Roma across the continent, the Romedia Foundation wishes to open up the way for new perspectives to nourish the debate about Roma in Hungary.

Program:

5.00 PM: Screening of the documentary films

5.00 pm From Tatárszentgyörgy to Tatárszentgyörgy

5.45 pm children of selita (Albania)

6.15 pm The Last Days of Sulukule (Turkey)

6.45 pm Ukraine 2008 – School Segregation (Ukraine)


The films will be screened in two separate screening rooms in two languages:

Screening room

1: Original language, English subtitles, Screening room /

2: Hungarian voice-over



7.00 PM: Key Messages for International Human Rights Day



7.30 PM: Panel Discussion with Hungarian Roma NGOs

Erzsébet Mohácsi, Chance for Children Foundation

Károly Káló, Bhim Rao Association

Gábor Daróczi, Romaversitas Foundation

Katalin Bársony, Romedia Foundation



9.00 PM: Reception/Musical performance by Babos Project Special

10.00 PM: Screening: Lashi Vita (Italy)


For any other information, please contact:

Katalin Barsony, Romedia Foundation,
Tel: +36 30 532 84 21; Email: katalin.barsony@mundiromani.com

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