Far-right gains could put Hungary reforms at risk

(Reuters) - The scenario is classic. Hungary's economy is in crisis, its large Roma minority is an easy scapegoat, and a far-right party blaming "Gypsy crooks" and "welfare spongers" is set to be the big winner.

READ MORE: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S1CU20100329

Madonna booed in Bucharest for defending Gypsies

AP: BUCHAREST, Romania – Thousands of fans have booed pop star Madonna after she spoke out against the discrimination of Gypsies in eastern Europe during one of her concerts.

Madonna paused in the two-hour concert to say that Gypsies, also known as Roma, were discriminated against in eastern Europe. She said that made her "sad" and nobody should be discriminated against.

Thousands in the crowd of 60,000 booed her. She did not react.

Roma musicians and a Roma dancer were featured in her show, held just yards from the giant palace of ex-communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Their performances were applauded by the crowd.

There are officially some 500,000 Roma in Romania, but the real number could be around 2 million. They face prejudice and discrimination in Romania and other east European nations.

Roma not a 'dirty' word

A young activist is on a mission to debunk stereotypes and end discrimination against one of the worst-treated ethnic groups in Europe.

By Brian Salmi for Southeast European Times in Podgorica -- 17/08/09

Clean-cut, dressed nattily and well-groomed, Jaha Samir is about as far away from the Gypsy stereotype as he can get. He is educated, articulate and industrious -- a poster child for a new generation of activists who are out to change the way the world thinks of his people. And, no, he does not mind if you call him a Gypsy.

Samir acknowledges that his people use the term, and that they do not object strenuously to others doing so as long as the intent is not to disparage. “Gypsy", Samir explains, "originally meant 'dirty - do not touch'". The dirty label has stuck to his people ever since it was first applied to them centuries ago. In 1973, a concerted effort began to replace the term Gypsy with Roma, a term he is more comfortable with.

Against long odds, Samir is attempting to erase the stigma that his people bear. He says a new team of leaders is now emerging in Europe to lead the Roma nation out of the social exile it has existed in since it first migrated from India a millennium ago.

In the 1980s, modern-day Roma, with a great deal of help from various international organisations, started to claw their way out of the ghettoes, both real and mental, that they have been locked into, says Samir. "That was the first time Roma were admitted into European universities in significant numbers," says the 25-year-old father of one, who is the director of the Montenegrin NGO Young Roma. That trend has continued over the past two decades, and today 250 Roma graduate from Macedonian universities every year.

Roma NGOs across Europe have been actively recruiting Roma university students. "Those students understand that they can build successful careers and help other Roma at the same time," says Samir.

There are only ten Roma enrolled in post-secondary education institutions in Montenegro. To date, only two have emerged with degrees, one of whom will soon be employed by the Montenegrin Ministry of Minorities. Samir plans to become the third to graduate; he is working on a degree in early childhood education and hopes to have it wrapped up next year.

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Councillor faces rap over gypsy comments

A SENIOR councillor's controversial comments about travellers are being reported to police.

Candy Sheridan, a Romany councillor for North Norfolk District Council, contacted the News to say she will be reporting Cllr Lister Wilson to police for "incitement to racial hatred".

It follows the Cambridgeshire county councillor's stinging attack on plans for 159 new travellers' pitches in South Cambridgeshire, which he said would make nearby properties "virtually unsaleable" and "near worthless".

He added that travellers had got away with a litany of crimes, including theft, vandalism and intimidation, saying: "Non-travellers cannot do these things and get away with them."

Branding his comments "cheap, unjustified claims", Cllr Sheridan said: "Cllr Wilson needs to be reminded about his code of conduct - he certainly would not be saying these things about Jewish people or any other nationality.

"He seems to think house prices will go down near traveller sites, which has never been proved in any study despite the Joseph Rowntree Trust work on this point.

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Wild East Capitalism and the Gypsy Exodus

July 29, 2009
Brian Kenety

The Czech Republic last year eclipsed war-torn countries like Somalia, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to become the seventh-biggest source of asylum seekers in Canada and at last count — with some 3,000 claims pending, up from a handful back in 2006 — had skyrocketed to second place, behind Mexico.

Canada’s immigration minister, Jason Kenney, argued that most refugee claimants from Mexico were in fact middle-class economic migrants, and also pointed to “bogus” refugee claims from the Czech Republic, most filed by members of the country’s Roma, or gypsy, community.

Ottawa slapped visas on both countries on July 15. Just a couple weeks later, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board publicly released the second of two reports from a March fact-finding mission to the Czech Republic, noting the Roma minority face “negative societal perceptions (including discrimination), inadequate housing, poor education, high unemployment, as well as far-right extremist activism.”

Much has been written about the immediate causes for the massive influx of Czech Roma asylum seekers to the Great White North — which began after Ottawa lifted the visa requirement in late 2007 — with the focus on the intensification of hate crimes in the Czech Republic over the past year, coinciding with unprecedented coordination between far-right political groups and skinheads.

Ales Horvath, a Roma businessman from the town of Pardubice who has been badly beaten twice by skinheads, says the constant — and rising — threat of violence pushed hundreds of Roma to pack their families off to Canada. “We are decent people. But we can’t go out into society like normal people,” Horvath told me. “Discrimination is so common here that people don’t even recognize it as discrimination. It has become normal. Society is pushing us into a corner more and more.”

In the international press — and to a large degree also the Czech press — debate has centered on the question of whether the Roma heading for Canada are legitimate refugees or simply economic migrants (or opportunists seeking to tap into a more generous social welfare system). But the role of capitalism is fanning the flames of extremism — by which I do not mean the catch-all explanation of the global financial crisis — has gone largely ignored.

The new ghettos

Widespread discrimination aside (and it’s no small thing), over the past 20 years, the Roma were literally pushed to the edge of Czech society. Along with the break-neck privatization (and corrupt practices) that gave birth to the term “the Wild East,” an unprecedented building boom in the country has lead to the creation of new Roma ghettos.

Before the Velvet Revolution in 1989, the Roma were far more integrated into Czech society, at least in terms of proximity, with white Czechs and Roma families living side by side, albeit not without tension. By the late 1990s, however, municipalities both large and small began in earnest to sell off properties, including the housing estates in which many Roma were living.

In 2006, prominent sociologist Ivan Gabal and a team of researchers released a study showing that nearly one-third of the Roma population lived in 250 new neighborhoods — usually run-down housing estates or dilapidated buildings on the outskirts of towns — that had come into being following the massive privatization of public housing in the 1990s.

Many of the Roma who found themselves in these ghettos, often in high-unemployment regions, had been evicted (along with “problematic inhabitants,” such as rent defaulters) from neighborhoods in Prague and other big cities undergoing free-market gentrification. Within these ghettos, Gabal’s researchers found that more than 95 percent of inhabitants were out of work.

Such ghettos make visible and easy targets for right-wing extremists. Such was the case with Janov, an isolated complex of neglected high rises in the Litvinov region, where neo-Nazis marching in step with members of fringe far-right Workers’ Party clashed with Roma, capturing headlines on both sides of the Atlantic.

“The last half year has been marked by attempts to openly attack Roma communities, preceded by political gatherings, in particular of the Workers Party — that is new, new, new,” said Gwendolyn Albert, who writes an annual country report on the Czech Republic for the European Network Against Racism, in a recent interview.

“Czech public officials, from mayors to ministers, have taken a page from the tactics of fringe neo-Nazi parties for political gain,” Albert says. “They are specifically targeting the issue of the proportionally large number of Roma citizens on welfare in this country as part of their populist political agendas.”

The Czech government is now considering a ban on the Workers Party and another extremist group, the National Party, which during the June elections for the European Parliament (incredibly) broadcast a video on Czech public television calling for “the final solution” to the Roma “question.” But for those trapped eking out a living in the new ghettos, the chance for a new life in Canada is another dream squashed.

Stop by the original blog post to read comments or leave one of your own.

Gypsy Summer

By Michael Johnson on 7.28.09 @ 6:08AM

BORDEAUX -- Anyone visiting Italy, France, Germany or Holland this summer is likely to be struck by increasing signs of abject poverty on the streets. Begging has expanded noticeably, often by elderly men and women or mothers carrying small babies. A woman holding her three-month-old daughter asked me for loose change outside a post office the other day on Bordeaux's most fashionable street.

At the Sunday outdoor market on Bordeaux's revitalized riverside, an accordionist plays mournful Slavic tunes as shoppers drop coins in a cup. I chatted with him the other day in a mix of French and Russian, both of which he spoke badly. He was surprisingly cheerful and seemed well fed. Now we call each other "kamarad."

With some exceptions, these dispossessed people are a long way from home. Eastern Europe's poor, mostly Roma, or gypsies, are coming west in large numbers looking for a better life or at least more charity.

Since the admission of Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union two years ago they rank as the largest ethnic minority in the Union, now numbering 12 million, more numerous than the population of Belgium or Greece.

After contributing modestly to the upkeep of the Roma for some months, I felt compelled to gain entry to this off-limits culture if only to test the veracity of scare stories circulating about them. Child prostitution and rampant thievery are common complaints from the local population. Their communal way of life, their wanderlust, their rejection of contraception and their poor language skills all contribute to the barriers that exclude them.

One well-traveled friend goes further, warning me that Roma are a "permanent criminal underclass that has taken its business on the road." The truth turns out to be more complicated.

To gain entry into their isolated quarters, I joined up with Dr. Christophe Adam of Médecins du Monde, a young physician who makes a pro bono visit to the gypsy squatters once or twice a week. On a recent visit, he was greeted as an old friend and I was just as warmly received once they came to trust me. They live in fear of racist attacks and official expulsion orders.

The doctor and I were encircled by a dozen or so men and women chattering excitedly in four languages. When they learned I was an American, one old man gave a thumbs-up sign and shouted, "Yes! Amerika!" A younger man, smiling broadly, introduced himself as "Bobby -- like 'Dallas.'"

These proud and handsome people are excluded from society where they came from -- Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia -- and more so in Western Europe. Except for members of a few charitable organizations, most West Europeans treat them as lepers.

If they identify a West Europe city that treats them tolerably well, as Bordeaux does, they write to fellow-villagers back home and tell them it is safe to come over. Thus extended families are often reunited although in deplorable conditions.

After a round of introductions at the squat, Dr. Adam and I were ushered into a large room, once a factory floor that now serves as home for about 15 people. Seven double beds were neatly arranged around the room as in a military barracks. Colorful fabrics were hung to cover the cement walls. The senior woman in the group strode toward me and introduced herself in Russian as Gladka.

I half expected her to offer me tea in a glass, Russian style, but that was beyond her. The room has no running water or toilet facilities. Electricity is pirated from a nearby utility pole.

I had a long talk in halting French with Léonard, a 19-year-old Bulgarian who said he makes enough money begging and washing windshields at street corners to buy his food, so he does not have to steal to survive. "I just want a normal life for my wife, and I don't want my daughter to become a beggar. I want to work," he said. Another man, camping in quarters next to the Bordeaux city dump, pulled at my sleeve and begged me to help him find odd jobs.

A high-level conference in Brussels last September suggested ways to bring some order to the treatment of Roma, chiefly by recommending that Roma children be accepted in the local school system.

But the law is uncompromising. The French occasionally round up the Roma and expel them for infraction of immigration laws. The Italian police sweep through the camps to count heads and collect DNA samples to match up family members.

Some manage to escape the spiral of exclusion and degradation. One such celebrated case is Cecilia Attias, the ex-wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Cecilia is the daughter of Aron Ciganer (a corruption of "tsigane," or gypsy) who was half-Jewish and half-gypsy. Two European Parliamentarians are of Roma origin. But such success stories are rare.

Their plight is neatly summed up by Dr. Adam: "The Roma problem is symbolic of our inability to live with people whose culture and habits are outside our norms."

Michael Johnson spent 17 years at McGraw-Hill, including six years as a news executive in New York. He now writes from Bordeaux in France.

Gypsies, citizens without rights

Friday 22 May 2009

FRANCE 24’s reporter went to meet gypsies in Russia. Considered second class citizens, they are victims of numerous discriminations. This report was filmed in Chudovo, south of Saint-Petersburg.

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Hungarian Blues

posted by Eyal Press on 05/18/2009 @ 3:03pm

I spent much of last year in Hungary, leaving just before the IMF cobbled together a rescue package to prevent the nation's economy from imploding. A full-scale implosion has been averted, at least for now, but Hungary is still in dire shape. Its economy is projected to shrink by 6 percent this year, unemployment is rising, and the country's disgraced socialist leader, Ferenc Gyrunscany, recently had to step down after several years of feckless rule that boosted the popularity of the Hungarian right.

This is bad news for all Hungarians, but especially for the country's Roma gypsies, a favorite scapegoat of the Hungarian Guard, a fascist group that has also seen its popularity grow in recent years. A number of gypsies have been killed recently in unsolved murders presumed to be the work of right-wing vigilantes, and the level of anti-Roma sentiment in Hungarian society has apparently increased dramatically. "You now hear anti-gypsy sentiment at every level of society," a prominent politician recently told the Financial Times.

I found this statement alarming in part because, frankly, I heard anti-gypsy sentiment at every level of society a year ago, including from young people in Budapest who thought of themselves as open-minded. In fairness, I also met Hungarians who marched in demonstrations against racism and intolerance. The current economic upheaval has not yet brought the far-right, much less the fascists, to power in Hungary. But it has made expressions of hatred more frequent and more casually permissible, an ominous development in a place where insecurity is rising.

Murder Mystery: Who's Killing Hungary's Gypsies?

By John Nadler / Tiszalök
Friday, May. 01, 2009
Time.com

Jeno Koka's killers shot him in the chest moments after he had bid good night to his wife Eva and stepped from his house on his way to a shift at the nearby pharmaceutical factory where he worked.

The 54-year-old grandfather bled to death only a few paces from his doorstep.

Although Koka's wife said she never heard the shot that felled her husband, hundreds of thousands of others across Hungary did.

Koka's murder on April 22 was the fifth in recent months of a member of Hungary's 600,000-strong Roma community. Hungarian police believe that a small group of killers is targeting Roma, who are also known as gypsies and remain one of the most marginalized and neglected groups in Europe.

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ASYLUM IN CANADA IS NECESSARY UNTIL THE EU CAN GUARANTEE SAFETY

April 25, 2008

Roma Community Centre - Toronto

ASYLUM IN CANADA IS NECESSARY UNTIL THE EU CAN GUARANTEE SAFETY

The Roma Community Centre in Toronto wishes to bring to the attention of the current Canadian government and the Canadian people the surge in violence that is being perpetrated against the Roma minority in the eastern member states of the European Union. On March 21 in Kosice, Slovakia a group of young Roma boys were forced to kiss each other, slap each other, and then strip naked upon the orders of police who recorded this incident on video on their mobile phones, reminiscent of the events of Abu Ghraib. On April 22 in the town of Tiszalök, the fourteenth murder of a Roma citizen in Hungary was committed. Two weeks ago a Romany woman and her 2 year old daughter were burned severely in Vitkov, Czech Republic, where the daughter suffered second and third degree burns over 80% of her entire body and remains in intensive care. These are just the latest updates in a slew of pogroms that has plagued the region. It was also last week that our Canadian Minister of Immigration, Jason Kenney, claimed that the 993% increase in refugee claimants coming from the Czech Republic was due to unscrupulous commercial operations. We ask him to reconsider his statement prior to the Prime Minister's meeting with the Czech government on May 6, 2009.

Amnesty International has recently issued a statement calling on Prime Minister Topolanek of the Czech Republic to ensure that the authorities “duly enquire into all cases of racially motivated attacks, and to impose punishments on the perpetrators that would correspond to the seriousness of their guilt.” We agree with this statement and AI's call on Czech politicians to resolutely condemn all displays of hatred and intolerance, whoever their target. They must make it clear that such conduct is unacceptable and unlawful, something they have failed to do since 1989.

The Czech Minister for Human Rights and Minorities, Michael Kocab, called this most recent attack on Roma citizens an act of terrorism. It would be nice to think that there has been a change of heart in the leadership of the Czech nation. Strong words need to be backed by strong actions and unfortunately there has been no evidence of any effort to respect the rights of minorities since the fall of communism, twenty years ago. The Czechs have been receiving the benefits of being a member of the EU without having to do the prerequisite work for it: creating a civil society. They have gained visa free access to Canada as a result of the bargaining power of the EU, yet they have not attempted to remove a pig farm from the site of a former concentration camp for Romanies during the Second World War. They are waiting for funds from the EU to pay for the cost of compliance with the Helsinki Accords. This welfare mentality must stop. Czechs need to live up to EU standards. If the EU failed to hold them accountable in the screening its new members, they need to take a more active role in ensuring compliance from its new member states.

Until then Canada should continue to grant asylum to Roma from the eastern EU member states. The Czech Republic is shirking its duty to all of its citizens, not just its Romany citizens who have been present in the Czech lands for over 300 years. Numerous violent attacks go unreported. Doctors often refuse to file medical reports in cases where their testimony is critical in reporting racially motivated attacks, due to fear or reprisal from vigilantes against the medical community. The police are systemically reluctant to act on racially motivated crimes. Twenty years of these types of precedents have created an environment of tacit complicity with the extreme right wing terrorizers. Until the leadership vacuum in the Czech Republic is filled with people willing to address this, the Roma will continue to leave. It is not Canada's job to solve the problems that Czechs, Hungarians, and others in that region have failed to address. Canadians nevertheless should not turn away those individuals who come here seeking safety. We urge Prime Minister Harper in his negotiations to hold the Czechs accountable for their actions while being mindful of the lives he can save by allowing the Roma to continue to come to Canada.

Contact:
Bill Bila
1412 - 11 St. Joseph Street
Toronto, ON M4Y 3G4
(647) 408-4695
http://us.mc01g.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=wlbila@gmail.com

Romania: Gypsies Celebrate Roma Day, Yet Fear Reigns

Written by Chuck Todaro
Thursday, 30 April 2009

April 8th marked the Twentieth International Roma Day since the Gypsies of Eastern Europe broke free of the communist’s amalgamated "national minority" status and began openly acknowledging their heritage. However, according to the US State Department 2007 Country Report on Human Rights, Romania, home to Europe’s largest Roma population, is the setting for some of the most pervasive societal violence and discrimination against Roma. "This day offers the press the chance to reverse the usual negative stereotypes," says Roma journalist Rudolf Moca during the ceremonies at the Apalina Public School in the Eastern Transylvania town of Reghin.

The day long celebration at Apalina begins in the school courtyard with speeches, the singing of the Roma National anthem Djelem Djelem, followed by a barefoot Roma dance performance, concluding with a skit portraying a confrontation between young Romani men being settled with a dance competition: the fastest dancer possessing the more complicated moves and greatest stamina exits the showdown with his head up and a woman under his arm.

Roma day has a special significance for the 4,000 Gypsies living along the two parallel roads at Apalina that bears the reputation as a den of thieves. "Whatever goes missing in town, I can guarantee you can find it at Apalina," comments Maria, a downtown barmaid.

"When I go on my jobs, my boss reminds me not to tell them that I am from Apalina, he says to say I’m from somewhere else, or else they wont have any work for me," says Dani Racz, who like many at the Roma of Apalina works the traditional trade of laying paving stones, a skill he learned from his father who learned from his father before him.

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Czech Gypsies seek pope's assistance

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, April 28 (UPI) -- Czech Gypsies have called on the pope to help them improve the status of their people, who have suffered discrimination across Europe.

Roma Realia, a Czech Romany non-governmental organization, asked Pope Benedict XVI to assist in organizing a debate on the social position of Gypsies in the Czech Republic and in other European countries, Prague Radio said Tuesday.

The Romany activists, in a letter to Pope Benedict, warned of the alleged rising animosity between Czechs and Gypsies that they said might slip out of control.

The Gypsy activists condemned Czech authorities for lacking knowledge how to cope with the issue.

Last week, Vladimir Spidla, European Union's commissioner for employment, social affairs and equal opportunities, said the Romany's discrimination in Europe is unacceptable.

Addressing reporters in Prague Friday, Spidla singled out Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as countries where Gypsies were maltreated or killed on racial motivation, the Serbian news agency Beta reported.

Hungary suspects Gypsy assaults organized

BUDAPEST, Hungary, April 27 (UPI) -- Hungary's national police chief said he suspects killings of Gypsies in northeastern Hungary could be blamed on the same ring of extremists.

Jozsef Bencze said he increased an original reward of $45,000 to $227,000 for information that could lead to the killers of members of the Romany (Gypsy) minority, the Hungarian news agency MTI said Monday.

Bencze said two Romanies were killed in the town of Nagycsecs in November, a father and his 5-year-old son were shot dead in Tatarszentgyorgy in February and a 53-year-old Gypsy was shot and killed in Tiszalok Wednesdayas he was about to leave for work in a chemical factory.

A 70-officer police team has worked on the three cases. Police questioned about 2,000 people, Bancze said.

Jewish groups should lead condemnation of attacks on Gypsies in Europe

April 27, 2009

The Times says this front-page report by Nicholas Kulish about murderous attacks on Gypsies, or Roma people, in Hungary is the paper's second-most-emailed story. As well it should be. Attacks on Gypsies recall the Holocaust, when as many as 600,000 Roma were exterminated by the Nazis.
As Isabel Fonseca and Norman Finkelsteinhave demonstrated, the Holocaust Memorial/Elie Wiesel had trouble making room for the Gypsy victims of the Holocaust. Per Finkelstein, one memorial official said the idea was "cockamamie." (In Night, Wiesel said Roma attacked his dying father in Auschwitz.) Daniel Goldhagen's book on the Holocaust all but completely leaves out the Roma.

I have a sense Jewish official attitudes are improving (Mitchell Bard's virtual library seems to honor the Roma experience). The Holocaust Memorial states:

The fate of Roma in some ways paralleled that of the Jews.

Now when the Roma are facing pogroms and terror in eastern Europe, Jewish groups should express solidarity with their fellow-victims, and be in the forefront of condemning the violence.

Posted by Philip Weiss at 03:32 PM

Gypsies 'won't be a bother to anyone'

Published Date: 22 April 2009

THE backlash to the arrival of gypsies on a site near Princes Risborough is 'nothing new,' the secretary of The Gypsy Council has said.

Joseph Jones, who runs the floating support service for the gypsy and traveller community in Bucks, and who has visited the family at Hemley Hill, said: "There's bound to be people who are concerned, it is fear of the unknown and it is the bad press which the gypsy-traveller community always gets."

He blamed local councils in Buckinghamshire for not doing enough to identify sites where gypsies and travellers could settle, adding that he expected any planning application to go to appeal, where 'two out three cases are successful'.

A local resident who spoke to The Bucks Herald, who asked not to be identified, said locals feared an increase in crime and anti-social behaviour, which Mr Jones denied would be the case.

"There is crime and there are criminals but there is no such thing as gypsy crime," he said. "Criminals come from any community."

Speaking at the site, gypsy Eileen Cash said she was positive about the welcome they had received from nearby residents.

"So far the people have been very nice from what we know of them but we don't know what they're saying behind our backs," she said.

She said the nine families who will live on nine pitches were all extended family.

They include a 22-year-old blind woman who needs a permament home in order to be able to get a guide dog, and an 'old lady who is very very ill' who also needs a permament base for medical reasons.

"We will keep ourselves to ourselves, no noise and we wont bother anybody," she said. "Residents would not bother us so we wont bother them.

She said that they want to tidy up the site, install a play area for children and exchange caravans on the site for mobile homes. "It will be nice and respectable, a very pemament site. I want to spend the rest of my life here," she said.

Councillor censured after row with gypsy

9:30am Thursday 23rd April 2009

By Phil Hill

A COUNCILLOR has been censured and ordered to undergo training following a run-in with a Romany gypsy over a planning issue.

The standards committee at Taunton Deane Council upheld a complaint against Conservative Cllr Denise Webber and ruled that she breached the Code of Conduct.

The committee heard that during a planning meeting Ms Webber said words to the effect: “I’ve heard some excuses for a gypsy applying for planning, but this is the worst.”

The complainant, Sally Tucker Woodbury, chairman of the Romany Gypsy Advisory Group, also alleged that Ms Webber was abusive to her during a phone conversation.

The standards committee said that Ms Webber, who was not at the hearing, failed to treat Mrs Tucker Woodbury with respect and her behaviour fell short of what people expect of councillors.

She was ordered to undertake training in equalities and diversity.

Speaking afterwards, Ms Webber said: “I don’t think I’ve shown any disrespect to any person, but I don’t know anything about the hearing so can’t comment until I find out exactly what I’ve been accused of.”

Conservative leader Cllr John Williams said: “I regret the standards board found it necessary to take this action - let’s hope we can move on from here.”

Mrs Tucker Woodbury welcomed the decision – she said: “Being a Romany gypsy, the feeling you always get is, ‘Why should I bother? Nobody will believe me as I’m only a gypsy’.

“But thankfully the truth stood and she was brought to justice.”

Gypsies suffer widespread racism in European Union

Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian
Thursday 23 April 2009

Racism and discrimination across the EU is far more widespread than previously thought, with Europe's estimated 12 million Roma, or Gypsy, population, being a special target, an EU agency warns.

In what is claimed to be the most comprehensive survey of victimisation suffered by Europe's minority and immigrant communities, the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency said "racially motivated crime is an everyday experience".

While all minorities reported disturbing levels of harassment, the Roma, scattered mainly across central Europe and the Balkans, and black people, were particularly singled out for abuse, the survey said.

Based on detailed questioning of almost 30,000 people in all 27 EU states, the survey found that 55% of immigrant or minority populations believed racism was rife in their countries, with more than one in three having suffered racist conduct, 12% being victims of racist crime and 4% being physically assaulted or threatened.

One in four Roma respondents said they had been assaulted, threatened, or harassed four times on average in a 12-month period. "They emerge as the group most vulnerable to discrimination," said Morten Kjaerum, director of the Vienna-based agency.

Levels of racism and discrimination were not reflected in police or official statistics, the report said, because of the victims' lack of confidence in the authorities.

Should India Speak Up for the European Romani?

April 20, 2009
Vinod Joseph

I heard of the Romani for the first time over a dozen years ago when I was still in college. Term was about to get over and we were all preparing to go home. A friend of mine was packing his bags to leave for Prague where his father, a diplomat, was posted. While we would catch a train or bus to get to our destinations, this chap would fly to Prague. Naturally we were all very jealous and it came as a surprise when my friend told me that Prague is not the nicest places on earth, for an Indian that is.

‘Why is that?’ I asked him.

‘Because Indians tend to get mistaken for Gypsies.’

‘Gypsies?’

‘That’s right. There are Gypsies in Prague who look like us.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah! And the Czechs don’t like the Gypsies.’

Apparently my friend was advised carry a book and wear glasses to show that he was educated and not a gypsy.

I didn’t give that conversation further thought till I came to the UK. Gypsies or Travellers are news items in the UK and they routinely hit the front pages, usually for the wrong reasons.

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Roma group addresses prejudice through cingeneyiz.org Web site

"I am a gypsy. One thousand years ago, Byzantines called my people 'athinganoi,' which means 'untouchable.' They were so afraid that they avoided touching us. ... Every country labeled us with expressions in their own languages:

Zigeuner, Cigani and Çingene. They thought we were different. Yes, we are different; we are poorer and freer than other people. But, we are also humans like anyone else," reads the welcome message of a Web site recently launched by a group of gypsies residing in different Turkish cities. The organizers of the Web site -- cingeneyiz.org -- said they set up the site to introduce themselves to the world and to overcome the strong prejudice people feel in their minds and hearts against gypsies. Gypsies in Turkey, or Roma as they are more commonly referred to, were back on the agenda around two weeks ago as they were celebrating the International Day of the Roma.

The celebrations were subdued in İstanbul, however, as they recently lost the battle to save their neighborhood, Sulukule, from a renovation project being carried out by the Fatih Municipality and the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality plans to construct 620 new houses, a hotel and a culture and entertainment center in Sulukule and is gradually demolishing the unregistered houses of Roma people in the area.

The Roma people now wish to make their voices heard through the newly launched Web site, which has a moving message: "We know that we are really different from others. We are free, strong, humanistic and creative. We have been the most peaceful people throughout history. There is no reason to make us feel ashamed. Yes, we are untouchable; evil, treachery and humiliation cannot touch us. ... I am proud of what I am. I am a Gypsy."

Editor of the Web site, Ali Mezarcı, stated that the main reason behind the launch of cingeneyiz.org is to help solve the problem of misunderstanding between gypsies and the people of the countries they reside in. "The most common source of problems we experience with other people is a lack of understanding. People are afraid of ‘the different' and ‘the incomprehensible' and prefer to keep away from them. Many tragic events have built walls between gypsies and other people. However, all people are equal and this reality disregards ethnic background. When we fully understand one another, we will see that we are same," he remarked.

Gypsies all around the world have been subjected to various forms of discrimination throughout history. They have been regarded as work-shy people or social parasites. A major study, carried out in 2004 by a rights group in Britain, revealed that gypsies are the group of people who receive the most hostility from white people in Britain. Hostility toward gypsies is called anti-gypsy racism and is very deep rooted, according to the study.

‘We aren’t a minority; we don't ask for rights'

The cingeneyiz.org team believes that specific and distinctive rights granted to groups of people will not help overcome the troubles they have faced so far.

"Minority rights given to ethnic groups or communities will not solve problems. We consider ourselves as equal citizens of this country rather than as a minority," the team stated, adding that they don't pursue the aim of voicing their demands for cultural or ethnic rights over the Web site.

The Web site shows that gypsies living in Turkey are proud of the names given to them in different countries and cultures as they believe that makes them a trans-racial and universal culture. "We are happy to be a component of different countries and to stand as a peaceful element of humanity. We will be happier if we manage to solve the problems we are facing today," remarked the team.

Sulukule tragedy: a major blow to Roma culture

One of the major topics heatedly debated on the Web site is the demolition of houses belonging to the Roma people in Sulukule as part of the renovation project in the area. Cingeneyiz.org provides up-to-date information to its visitors on the ongoing demolition works and informs them about the struggle against the destruction of a longstanding culture in the area.

The demolition of houses in Sulukule and the relocation of its inhabitants have drawn the indignation of residents and that of the international community as Sulukule is considered a significant historical site that needs to be protected.

A UNESCO progress report on İstanbul prepared last year by a four-member delegation from UNESCO's World Heritage Center pointed out that the planned urban renewal program in Sulukule would result in the destruction of the area and the relocation of its inhabitants. The report also warned İstanbul that if it failed to take the necessary precautions to protect its historical sites, it would be relegated to the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger.

Similarly, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission), an independent government agency created by the US Congress, stated last year that it was disturbed by developments in an urban development project threatening the homes of some 3,500 ethnic Roma in İstanbul's Sulukule area and called on the Turkish government to find a solution to the problems facing the Roma.

Slovak police exposed over gypsy abuse

Published: April 8 2009 13:22 Last updated: April 8 2009 13:22

Wednesday may be International Roma Day, but Slovakia will not be celebrating any improvement in the status of its gypsies.

Instead, police inspectors will be poring over tapes depicting their colleagues humiliating Roma children in scenes reminiscent of Abu Ghraib.

Half a dozen videos apparently shot by police on March 21 at a local station in Kosice, eastern Slovakia show six Roma children being forced to strip naked, kiss each other on the cheek and then strike each other in the face.

In one shot, six young Roma boys standing in a tiny room begin pulling their clothes off. A voice from above shouts at them to be quick, that the last to disrobe will be punished. One thin boy hesitates to pull off his white underwear. “Take it all off!” a voice shouts. “Hands behind your heads!” The camera that is filming this humiliating scene closes in on the boys’ genitals and then pans out to capture one of them looking up at his tormentors.

In another scene, police in uniform are restraining dogs that are barking at the same six boys. One of them is hiding behind a desk. The sound of crying can be heard. “Shut up, stop crying!” shouts a voice. “Bunch of fucking gypsies.”

In still another, the boys are made to kiss each other on the cheek and then slap each other in the face. “Give him a good one! And now you, hit him back! Now kiss each other,” says the hidden cameraman. “Hit him and shut up. I’ll tell you when to stop. If he ducks, I’ll kick him.”

Uniformed police officers can be seen filming the action on their cameras and mobile phones. The police spectators laugh as the boys, uncertain, keep looking around for instructions. “What kind of a punch was that? Hit him as hard as he hit you!”

Contacted at home in Kosice, Ivan Kroscen, 13, said that he and his friends had stolen a purse at a Kosice shopping mall, and after being arrested had been taken by the police to a downtown precinct. Their parents were not called until after their interrogation, he said. They are all in their early to mid teens.

“They kept laughing at us, and told us not to be afraid of the dogs because they were young ones,” he said. “But one bit me on the leg and in the bum.”

At a press conference on April 7 after the videos surfaced, the country’s top policeman, Jan Packa, said that up to eight policemen would be fired as a result, and that they would be charged with abuse of power. “These individuals have seriously harmed the good name of the Slovak police corps,” he said.

This is not the first time the Slovak police have been accused of abusing members of the country’s second-largest ethnic minority. In 2001, a 51-year-old Roma man was beaten to death while handcuffed to a radiator at a police station in eastern Slovakia. Seven of his police attackers were found guilty of torture last year.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

Councillor faces action over 'anti-gypsy' remark

john.downing@cambridge-news.co.uk

A COUNCILLOR could face disciplinary action for saying travellers should be left to stew in raw sewage.

Cllr Deborah Roberts is alleged to have made an offensive remark to Dale Robinson, a South Cambridgeshire District Council officer.

They met when the council was about to use its default powers to clear raw sewage from an area near where children played at the Smithy Fen travellers' site.

Mr Robinson, who said he had previously had a "very good" working relationship with the "rather challenging" Cllr Roberts, was asked by her about the cost of the Smithy Fen work.

After she said money should not be spent on "them", Mr Robinson's note of the meeting says:

"She said: 'Let them stew in their own ****'."

Cllr Roberts later said her comment was: "Let them stew in it."

An investigation by the Standards Board for England has been referred to the local hearings panel - and it meets at the council's offices on Wednesday, April 15 to decide if Cllr Roberts breached its code of conduct.

A report from the council's ethical standards officer reveals that Cllr Roberts contacted the Standards Board to deny Mr Robinson's "outrageous" claims and complain that she was the victim of a "witch hunt".

After she met Greg Harlock, the council's chief executive, about the issue, he recalled that she was "very worked up" and "her emotions were all over the place". He said: "At no time did Cllr Roberts deny having said it. What she went into was to provide background information."

But when interviewed by an internal investigator on July 25 last year, Cllr Roberts said: "No I didn't (say that). I'm sure I did say: 'Let them stew in it'."

The council's ethical standards officer said Mr Robinson's account was written soon after the meeting on January 31 last year and he had "no difficulties" in hearing Cllr Roberts' words.

Cllr Roberts said the officer's report took a "selective approach" to evidence, but the officer said all relevant evidence was used in the investigation into whether Cllr Roberts breached the code of conduct, which states: "You must treat others with respect."

If found to have broken the code, Cllr Roberts would face disciplinary action, with the ultimate sanction of three months' suspension from the council.

Cllr Roberts, who was last night unavailable for comment, is no stranger to controversy. In 2007 she escaped punishment from the Standards Board despite saying that, if she had cancer, she would launch a suicide bomb attack on travellers in Cottenham.

She was thrown out of the council's cabinet and later apologised.

Serbia Gypsies moved to sleep in the open

BELGRADE, Serbia, April 7 (UPI) -- The eviction of a small Romany community from their shanties Tuesday triggered outcries against Gypsy discrimination by Serbian officials, observers said.

About 40 Romanies have been sleeping in the open for four nights between Belgrade's high-rise apartment blocs after officials pulled down their sheds, the Serbian news agency Beta said Tuesday.

Belgrade officials evicted the Romany families from 28 tin-and-cardboard shanties erected on state land close to a newly built housing blocks in the New Belgrade district.

The authorities tried to move the Romany families to prefabricated apartments on the outskirts of Belgrade but local residents blocked the area, keeping the Romanies from settling in. Many of the Romanies returned to the New Belgrade district.

More than 43 non-governmental organizations asked the Serbian and Belgrade officials to provide proper housing for the Gypsy families that were forced out from their shanties.

On the eve of April 8, the International Day of the Romany, a number of European organizations warned that strong opposition to foreigners is on the rise amid the current economic crisis in some countries. These organizations said they are concerned over discriminatory attitudes towards the Romanies, particularly over recent escalation of incidents motivated by hatred and racial rhetoric.

Tamil Nadu’s gypsies demand right to vote

March 25th, 2009 - 3:34 pm ICT by IANS

Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu), March 25 (IANS) Over 100 tribals of Tamil Nadu’s Narikkorava (gypsy) community held a demonstration here Wednesday, demanding the right to vote, police said.

“This near illiterate gypsy tribe could not cast their votes so far due to their nomadic character, though they were issued ration cards 10 years ago. We are assuring them all help this time,” a police official said after persuading the tribals to give up their protest.

“We have a history going back thousands of years and are as much citizens of this nation as others. Yet, we have been marginalised, termed untouchables and (have) never voted. Now we want to assert our rights,” a spokesman of the group, Domba Raja, told IANS.

The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta said the poll panel will look into the community’s grievances.

“We are particular that nobody should be denied the right to vote and will take immediate action if representations from this group reaches us directly or the district administration,” Gupta told IANS on phone from Chennai.

The tribe’s origins are traced to European Roma gypsies and to several others from Rajasthan, Gujarat and Orissa, according to accounts published by Edgar Thurston in 1909.

According to the police, most members of the tribe live in Tamil Nadu and parts of Kerala. They used to be trappers and hunters, but hunting has now been banned. One of their traditional handicarfts is the making of bead garlands.

Racist Leaflets Inspire Hatred for Minority

A story sent to me from September 30, 2005

By Irina Titova
Staff Writer

Human rights experts are worried by rising racist trends after leaflets calling for violence against Roma were circulated in the city of Pskov, 280 kilometers south of St. Petersburg, in September.

“We are calling for Russia to be cleaned up! No To Gypsy Drug Barons! Save Your Children!” read the leaflets posted at the city’s bus stops, the St. Petersburg branch of non-governmental human rights group Memorial reported Wednesday.

The leaflets accused the Roma of drug trafficking and compared them to spiders.

“Pskov residents! The most terrible disease of our times — drug addiction — is spreading in our city. Taking advantage of the authorities’ negligence, gypsy families have organized the unrestricted and widespread sale of drugs in Pskov. Every day, more and more of our children get become captives of drugs,” one of the leaflets read.

The leaflets were signed by a movement calling itself Free Russia, which called for Pskov residents to provide lists of names and addresses of Roma living in the city.

The leaflets also stated that police statistics cite Roma as being Russia’s “most active drug traders.”

The leaflets have alarmed Pskov Roma, who are afraid to go out, fearing they could be attacked, said Olga Abramenko, coordinator of the Northwest Center For Social and Juridical Defense of Roma at St. Petersburg’s Memorial, on Wednesday.

“The leaflets were absolutely racist, nationalist and aggressive. And it is not true that according to police statistics Roma are the main drug traders [in Russia],” Abramenko said.

The distribution of leaflets took place not long after the kidnapping and murder of a Roma man, Vladimir Berezovsky, on Aug. 30, leading to fears that the two events are linked.

A few days after the murder, another local Roma man, Alexander Mikhailov, was beaten up after attackers questioned him about his ethnicity.

The Pskov city prosecution has opened criminal investigations into both the murder and the attack, but neither have been solved, Abramenko said.

Abramenko also said Memorial could not be sure if the nationalist group Free Russia exists in reality.

Boris Pustyntsev, co-head of St. Petersburg’s human rights Citizen Watch said that some Roma do to turn to crime as they are unable to find lawful employment due to discrimination. He stressed, however, that not only gypsies are dealing in drugs.

“When someone has no other way to make money, he often gets involved in crime. That’s not just the case with Roma — it also happens with Russians and people of other ethnicities,” Pustyntsev said.

Giving and taking away

Phil Chamberlain The Guardian, Wednesday 25 February 2009

Travellers' rights champion recognised for forthright campaigning faces a battle of her own over eviction from her home

Bridgette Jones will be at Buckingham Palace next month to collect an MBE for service to her community.

A week later she will be at the high court hoping that her home outside Canterbury will not be taken from her.

"They give you a medal with one hand and they try and take your home away with the other," she says.

Jones, known to everyone as Bridie, has championed Traveller rights for the last 15 years. During that time she says that overt racism against Gypsies and Travellers may have diminished in the UK but discrimination still exists - nowhere more so than in planning regulations. Since 2001 she has been fighting to stay on the plot of land that she, her son, daughter and seven grandchildren call home.

"It has been seven long and depressing years," she says. "We have been given planning permission by the county council and by two inspectors but some villagers have set up a group to stop us and they keep appealing. It is very aggravating. You have children born and bred on that land."

Through her work with the Canterbury Gypsy Traveller Support Group, Jones gets a lot of calls from Travellers about similar planning problems.

"In some cases it is just ethnic cleansing," she claims. "In Basildon the council is spending £3m on bailiffs to evict Travellers from a site. There are 300 children on that site and some are sick and some are dying. We're supposed to be in a credit crunch and yet they spend all this money to put people off their own land."

Jones began volunteering back in 1992, working with young people in Kent. She found then that ethnic minority children didn't access traditional youth services so she tried to open up the services to the whole community.

"I've always tried to break down barriers and build bridges," she says. "When I get a phone call now I try to make sure they get the right services and go to the right people. It's about bringing people around a table and discussing problems."

When Jones got the letter in the post back in October with the royal motif on it, asking if she would accept an MBE she thought it was a joke. A follow-up letter inviting her to the palace in March was met by "complete out-and-out shock".

Jones has been to Downing Street to petition for Traveller rights on several occasions, but she just plans on enjoying this trip. She is saving her energy for the high court battle.

"People get very angry when they see what is happening in Italy with [Roma]Gypsies," she says , "but I don't think people know that it [discrimination] is on their own doorstep."

‘Time Bomb’ Ticks in Hungary as Roma Tension Rises (Update1)

By Zoltan Simon and Balazs Penz

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Hungary is contending with rising resentment toward its Roma, or Gypsy, population as the economy sinks and unrest grows.

A police chief who last month blamed Roma for crime in his city was fired by the government, then reinstated after more than 1,000 people protested. Anti-Roma demonstrations also erupted in western Hungary last weekend after media reports that Roma men were responsible for the murder of a local athlete. A court in December banned a two-year-old uniformed nationalist group sworn to tackle what it called “Roma crime.”

As in other European countries, Hungary’s Roma live in the poorest areas and endure the highest rates of unemployment, said Janos Ladanyi, director for the Center of Social, Regional and Ethnic Conflicts in Budapest. Clashes will become more frequent as the economic crisis engulfs the region, unless the rule of law can be enforced, he said.

“This is a time bomb,” said Ladanyi. “I hope the alarming events of the past few weeks will make the sensible majority and especially the political elite recognize that we can’t go down this road. This road is a dead end. It leads to the Balkans.”

The government is trying to balance public resentment and the need for order. Justice Minister Tibor Draskovics on Feb. 8 ordered police to increase patrols and the cabinet the same day decided to direct extra funds to security forces.

Need to Act

“We have to act while we can, not wait until the prejudices and the urge to vigilantism distil into unmanageable social phenomena,” Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, 47, wrote on his Web site. “We have to act against violence most decisively.”

The opposition Fidesz party, which is leading the governing Socialist Party in opinion polls ahead of elections next year, said the government should focus more on catching criminals than on worrying about prejudice.

“We have to tell it like it is: the number of serious crimes committed by people of Gypsy origin is rising at an alarming pace,” Fidesz said in a statement yesterday. “We demand that the government, instead of finding excuses based on the origins of the perpetrators, find the perpetrators and protect the rights and interests of the victims.”

The situation isn’t helped by the decline of what was once eastern Europe’s economic dynamo.

Unemployment probably rose to 8.3 percent in January, the highest in at least 10 years, according a Bloomberg survey of economists. Official data is due on Feb. 27.

IMF Aid

Last year, the government was forced to turn to the International Monetary Fund to avert a debt default, and the economy is forecast to contract as much as 3 percent this year.

Marian Cozma, 26, a Romanian national handball player, was stabbed to death in front of a dance club in the town of Veszprem in western Hungary on Feb. 7. Two of the three suspects were detained in Austria late the next day, Hungarian police said in a Feb. 9 statement. The third is being sought.

“Everyone in the whole wide world knows that those murderous animals were Gypsies,” wrote columnist Zsolt Bayer in daily Magyar Hirlap. “A huge number of Gypsies have given up on coexistence and given up on their humanity.”

Gyurcsany ordered state institutions to cancel subscriptions to the daily, his office said in a statement yesterday.

‘Discrimination and Persecution’

Albert Pasztor, the police chief in Miskolc, claimed at a Jan. 30 press conference that all the December and January burglaries in the city of 180,000 were committed by Roma. Draskovics reinstated him after street protests from a crowd estimated at 1,500 by state-run MTI news agency.

With about 10 million people, the Roma have made up the European Union’s largest ethnic minority since the bloc started expanding eastward in 2004. The EU operates an integration program, with traineeships and funding for anti-discrimination groups, according to the European Commission’s Web Site.

“Roma communities in Europe have long faced discrimination and persecution,” the site said.

Rob Kushen, managing director of the European Roma Rights Center, blames the media and growing support for nationalist political parties for fueling hatred.

“What you have is a political climate that plays up ethnic tensions and attempts to demonize the Roma minority,” said Kushen, whose center is in Budapest. “That’s a serious concern. You create the climate for an increase in tension.”

Members of the nationalist group, Magyar Garda, wore 1930s- style uniforms and armbands. It was established in 2007 by the nationalist party Jobbik, which has organized a demonstration for Feb. 13 in Budapest to protest “Roma crime.”

Flag Wavers

During the past two years, members marched in Budapest and villages with a large Roma population under a red-and-white striped flag similar to one used by Hungary’s Nazi-allied government in World War II. The group was banned in December for inciting fear among minorities.

The biggest population of Roma in Europe is in Romania, estimated at as much as 2.5 million people, according to the Roma rights center.

The Roma in Hungary number 200,000 to 700,000, or 2 to 7 percent of Hungary’s 10 million people, Ladanyi said. While many don’t state their ethnicity in the census, about 40 percent are considered “permanently excluded” from society, he said.

“My concern is for the 15 percent or so of Roma who have managed to leave the shantytowns, who are trying to join the middle class but whose tentative grip may slip now during the economic crisis,” said Ladanyi.

To contact the reporters on this story: Zoltan Simon in Budapest at zsimon@bloomberg.net Balazs Penz in Budapest at bpenz@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: February 11, 2009 06:08 EST

Tensions rise over Italy’s gypsy migrants

By Guy Dinmore and Gabriella Bianchi

Published: January 26 2009 20:29 Last updated: January 26 2009 20:29

A political storm has erupted around Italy’s gypsy community after a series of recent attacks prompted Silvio Berlusconi, the country’s prime minister, to suggest deploying 30,000 troops nationwide to combat crime blamed on gypsies and other immigrants.

Europe’s open borders have led to a flood of Romanian gypsies into Italy, straining municipal services and stirring political tensions. Some church groups estimate 50,000 Romanian gypsies have arrived in recent years, adding to thousands of Balkan gypsies who had fled the former Yugoslavia. Many live in squalid conditions condemned by human rights groups.

Mr Berlusconi suggested the extra deployment of troops in response to the highly publicised cases of two women reportedly gang raped near Rome. Police have not publicly identified their suspects as gypsies.

But Carabinieri police units have searched 47 settlements and other places for the suspected rapists and one “Romanian” was arrested, local media said.

Police also intervened after a neo-fascist group demonstrated in Guidonia near Rome – where the rapes took place – during which thugs attacked Romanian and Albanian immigrants.

The possible troop deployment follows the decision last summer by the prime minister’s tough-on-crime ruling coalition to order 3,000 troops to back up police last summer, mainly in the fight against organised crime and illegal immigration.

Ignazio La Russa, defence minister, said today that Mr Berlusconi’s proposal remained a “hypothesis”, to be discussed further in high-level talks on Thursday.

Gypsy activists are investigating allegations that units of the Folgore parachute brigade were involved in making arrests and breaking up illegal shacks used by gypsies on Rome’s Via Gordiani last week.

An army spokesman said a unit of Sardinian grenadiers had been involved in checking identities of some 70 gypsies in an illegal camp.

Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, made his second inspection tour of camps near Rome this month.

He was visibly shocked at meeting with a Romanian who called herself Marinella, living in a tent with her two children, in the midst of rats and a swamp caused by torrential rain.

“The situation is unacceptable,” he told the Financial Times. “Nothing has changed since my last report in July. In fact living conditions are even worse. So much talk and media attention but nothing happens. This is a display of inept policy.”

Meanwhile, an official poster campaign sponsored by Gianni Alemanno, mayor of Rome, is boasting of “6,216 expulsions in 2008” and taking credit for a “20 per cent fall in crime”.

Formerly a neo-fascist, Mr Alemanno campaigned on a promise to crack down on crime, illegal immigrants and gypsies, capitalising on emotions that were running high after the murder of a woman by a Romanian gypsy near a railway station.

Mario Mori, a retired general who is security adviser to the mayor, sought to distinguish actual policy from the heat of last April’s elections.

Mr Mori said the 6,216 expelled by the prefect of the interior ministry were mostly illegal immigrants from north Africa and only a few had been gypsies.

He noted there was no national legislation on “regulating” gypsies and that policy had been left to individual cities.

Mr Alemanno wants to erase unauthorised camps and build new “maxi-camps” for gypsies who have the “right” to stay in Italy by proving they are EU citizens. Those without papers are liable for expulsion.

Mr Hammarberg said today: “I am concerned about reported plans to use soldiers for evicting Roma (gypsies) from their settlements.

“If evictions are necessary at all they should be conducted humanely and only after a satisfactory alternative for housing is found and offered.”

Nazareno Guarnieri, head of an organisation that represents gypsies, said: “They say we like living in camps. They invented camps. None of us lived in camps before. We want homes.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

EUROPE: Roma Pay the Price for Far-Right Rise

By Zoltán Dujisin

BUDAPEST, Dec 29 (IPS) - The alarm bell is ringing in Central Europe: as the region braces itself for an economic crisis, extremism grows and gains popular sympathy by targeting the Roma.

The collapse of social rights in post-communist central-eastern Europe has been most harsh on the Roma, a minority that is believed to have migrated to Europe from India since the 14th century.

While anti-Roma prejudices are strong in Central Europe, so far no political force has managed to garner support by rallying the population against them. But extremists now see a window of opportunity in mobilising anti-gypsy feelings.

"The gypsy theme doesn't create political divisions, it's an everyday thing for people on the left or right, and they (extremists) are trying to use this to gain some power outside of politics," Hungarian anthropologist Gergo Pulay told IPS.

This is the case with the Hungarian Guard, a quasi-paramilitary group created in August 2007 and whose 2,000 or so members get physical training and promise to preserve Hungarian traditions and protect its citizens.

In October Czech extremists followed suit, setting up the pseudo-paramilitary National Guard, also about 2,000 member strong.

Conditions are set for a spiral of violence: extremists accuse their countries' police forces of failing to protect citizens from "gypsy crime", while members of Roma communities say they are ready to set up their own militias to protect themselves.

Several provocative marches by Hungarian Guard members in Roma-inhabited settlements have coincided with sudden new attacks on Roma inhabiting Hungarian villages. The Roma constitute 6 percent of Hungary's 10 million population.

In one incident in November, grenades were launched into a Roma-inhabited house in Pecs, 250 km south of Budapest, killing two adults and injuring two children. The Hungarian police was criticised for ruling out the possibility of a racist motive in the attack before launching an investigation. They later retracted the statement.

Such scenes are also becoming familiar to Czechs following successive clashes between extremists and the Roma in the Janov housing estate in Litvinov in the northern Czech Republic.

In one incident, supporters of the far-right Workers Party tried to invade the heavily Roma-inhabited estate Nov. 17. Policemen, extremists and locals were involved in the clashes where Molotov cocktails were thrown and police cars put on fire.

Many were appalled by the large number of elderly locals who sided with the extremists, signalling that far-right extremism is not isolated. Encouraged by signs of local support, Czech far-right supporters have spoken of further action.

There are some 300 Roma ghettos across the country. Many of them have appeared as a result of a recent spree in evictions. Approximately 80,000 inhabitants of these ghettos are often unemployed, welfare-dependent and uneducated.

Often they are moved to better quality but more isolated flats, hindering their integration in mainstream society.

In the neighbourhoods where they are placed, they are usually received with fear and suspicion by locals, feelings fed by the many Czech politicians who express blatantly anti-Roma opinions.

"I am absolutely disgusted by the latest events in Litvinov and especially by the lack of reaction from the Czech political elite," Cyril Koky from the government council for Roma affairs told media in November.

Politicians in the region, and especially in the Czech Republic, have reacted mildly to anti-gypsy incidents. They tend to depict the Roma as living off welfare and as having been overprotected under the defunct communist state.

"If they take welfare benefits and don't work, they are more likely to keep stealing from people," Istvan Kovacs, one of the few protesters willing to speak to journalists at one of the far-right rallies in Budapest told IPS.

He denies that the clearly anti-Semitic and anti-gypsy utterances of younger protesters around him are fundamentally racist. "We just need to help them become better Hungarians," he says with a kind smile.

The Hungarian Guard denies any involvement in the latest incidents. It boasts some "honorary" Jews and Roma among its ranks, and handed out Christmas presents to Roma children to fence off accusations of racism.

Extreme-right movements are beginning to relinquish Nazi symbols, opting instead for more home-grown imagery and ideological patterns, while increasing international cooperation with similar movements.

In a region where left-wing politics is stigmatised due to a failure to deal with the heritage of socialism, the anti-globalisation mood has been channelled by a nationalistic right that accuses domestic elites of selling out state property to multinational corporations.

Authorities in the region have promised to monitor the activities of such groups, especially paramilitary ones, but they have become highly skilled in avoiding breaching the law, and legal shortcomings mean that even a ban can be easily circumvented.

Moreover, far-right groups like those in Hungary intimidate opponents by publishing the full names, telephones and addresses of lawyers, judges or journalists who get in their way.

In Slovakia a far-right party has even made it into the governing coalition in 2006, and since then racially motivated crimes have increased exponentially in what some consider the result of the state legitimating xenophobic views. (END/2008)

Gypsy kids herded into Czech schools for disabled

By KAREL JANICEK – 22 hours ago

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) — Roma children face severe discrimination in the Czech Republic and are still being segregated into schools for those with mental disabilities, a rights group said Thursday.

The charge comes a year after the European Court of Human Rights demanded that the country stop the practice.

Roma children "continue to be dramatically over-represented in practical primary schools that follow a special curriculum for mentally disabled pupils," the European Roma Rights Center said in a report.

Czech Education Minister Ondrej Liska said it could take three to five years to solve the problem but admitted that the children of Roma, or Gypsies, "are not less talented and do not have fewer abilities than the others."

Rights advocates said, however, that officials at all levels are reluctant to address the issue.

"What is needed here is a real action to bring Roma children into mainstream schools," said Robert Kushen of the Budapest-based Roma Rights Center. "I hope we can see that commitment, but I'm skeptical."

Roma are one of Europe's largest, poorest and fastest-growing minorities. An estimated 7 million to 9 million live in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries.

They remain at risk of social exclusion, despite government programs to integrate them. The European Union has set aside millions in education, housing and job aid to help.

In November 2007, the European Court of Human Rights demanded the Czech Republic take steps to end the discrimination against Roma youths in schools after Roma students sued. The ruling acknowledged that "other European states had had similar difficulties."

Failure to comply with the ruling could lead to a new court case and possible fines or sanctions.

Kirby's commission's poster girl

1:10pm Sunday 26th October 2008

A pembroke teenager is one of Wales’ new faces of equality.

Kirby Jones, a Priory Project pupil and member of the gypsy community, is appearing on billboards and adverts in connection with a campaign by the Equality and Human Rights Commission called ‘Who do you see?’ Kirby, who recently gave a presentation to the European Parliament in Brussels, travelled to the launch of the campaign in Cardiff last week.

Kirby, aged 19, welcomed the opportunity to represent her community.

“There are no role models to speak out on behalf of the gypsy community and I felt this was a chance for someone to do so and be recognised for the good that we do instead of the bad,” she said.

A mobile billboard is winding its way around Welsh roads challenging people to think beyond their first impressions. Kirby’s image was also used in a flash animation spanning more than 15 metres which was projected onto the commission’s office in Cardiff.

Kirby is a former pupil of Monkton CP School, which supports the education of about 200 gypsy traveller pupils in the county and is regarded as one of the most successful services in Wales.

The school has succeeded in engaging gypsy traveller young people in education beyond the usual leaving age and equips them with skills to enter higher education and pursue a range of careers.

Extremists increase their influence over society

Written by Political Capital & the Hungarian Anti-Racist Foundation
Sunday, 19 October 2008

The past two years have brought a quality change in anti-Semitic and racist public discourse in Hungary. Far right activism since the autumn of 2006, racist reactions to the incident at Olaszliszka and the emergence of the Hungarian Guard have crossed lines in Hungarian public life that in the past for the most part managed to check the public articulation of prejudices.

These developments have greatly increased the far right's potential social base and political scope for action. Increasingly open anti-Semitism entering the public arena continues to be a major identity-building force for the radical right. With all that, steadily rising tension between the Roma and non-Roma populations, clearly the country's major social conflict, represents a much larger threat in Hungary. Increasing conflicts between a majority and a minority are often an inevitable concomitant (and catalyst) in the struggle for social equality. However, to current situation does not point in the direction of a solution thanks simultaneously to the head-in-the-sand policies followed by parliamentary parties, the lack of adequate government programs, the aggressive symbolic actions of the Hungarian Guard, as well as the weak identity of Hungary's Roma population and a resulting low organizational level.

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Italy: Many Roma Gypsies 'gone to permissive Spain' says minister

Rome, 3 Oct. (AKI) - Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said that Roma Gypsies have left the country and gone to 'permissive Spain' in an interview with Italian weekly L'Espresso.

"We thought there were 120,000 (Roma Gypsies in Italy). There are less. Many of them have spontaneously gone to the more permissive Spain of Zapatero," said Maroni, referring to Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

However, Spanish Minister of Work and Immigration Celestino Corbacho responded to Maroni on Friday by saying:

"I think that Roberto Maroni would do better by making his remarks and policies fit with what we agreed on, only 15 days ago, in the Council of Ministers of the Interior and Justice, which is the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum," said Corbacho quoted by Spanish daily El Pais.

The pact, set to be approved by European Union leaders this month, will make it harder for member states to grant mass amnesties for illegal migrants. It will also urge EU states ensure that foreigners without papers are removed.

Italian rights groups and charities such as the Comunita San Egidio say the Berlusconi government deliberately exaggerated the numbers of Gypsies living in Italy to justify its "emergency measures" against the them.

Such measures include a Gypsy census involving fingerprinting, and the dismantling of illegal encampments.

"The numbers (of Roma Gypsies) were somewhat inflated, but thousands of Roma Gypsies have decided to leave the country, fleeing from harassment and persecution," said rights group, Everyone, quoted by El Pais.

At least 70,000 Roma Gypsies are Italian citizens, and many others come from European Union countries such as Romania, while others came from countries of the former Yugoslavia.

"In the Gypsy camps, we have found Roma Gypsies of Romanian origin, Roma and Sinti Gypsies of Italian origin, non-EU citizens that are not Gypsies, as well as Italians.

"We found everything. The shocking aspect is that half are children without parents. We will send them to school," said Maroni.

In June, Gypsy camps in Naples were set on fire in arson attacks after a teenage Roma Gypsy girl was accused of trying to steal a baby.

The Roma census was compared by both Jewish and Catholic groups in Italy to Nazi racial discrimination and persecution.

The Italian government argues that the census is intended to stop Gypsy children begging and stealing, but also to help them gain access to the Italian health and education systems.

Maroni has defended the dismantling of illegal Roma camps and other measures targeting illegal immigrants, including expulsions.

He claims the government wants to identify those who have the right to stay in Italy and make sure they can live in "decent conditions".

Italy must face legal action for anti-Gypsy measures, says Soros

TERESA KÜCHLER
17.09.2008 @ 10:21 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Billionaire philanthropist and financier George Soros has said at a top-level EU conference on the problems facing Roma people in Europe that he supports legal action against Italy over recent anti-Gypsy measures, particularly the fingerprinting of adults and children.

"Certainly, fingerprinting, racial profiling and so on is unacceptable and, I believe, illegal, and I hope that the European Court of Justice will take up the case and declare it illegal," the Hungarian-born founder of the Open Society Institute said on Tuesday (16 September) in a press conference at the first "European Roma Summit" in Brussels, an event jointly organised by the European Commission and the Soros foundation.

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Italy: Euro MPs to visit Gypsy camps in Rome

Brussels, 4 Sept. (AKI) - A delegation of MPs from the European Parliament are planning to visit several Gypsy camps in the Italian capital, Rome, later this month.

Belgian MP Gerard Deprez told Adnkronos International (AKI) he will lead the group of seven European members of Parliament who will visit Rome from 18-20 September.

The fact-finding mission is taking place as the Italian government is carrying out a controversial census of Roma Gypsy camps in major cities, which includes fingerprinting.

Deprez said "practical difficulties" had forced the European Parliament delegation to scale back its visit, which was originally due to include Gypsy camps in the southern city of Naples and the northern industrial capital, Milan.

The visit is taking place in consultation with Italy's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, and will include meetings with members of the Italian government, Rome's Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, and the government's top public order representative, the Prefect of Rome, Carlo Mosca.

Italy's conservative government said on Thursday that it had been "fully vindicated" after the European Commission said the fingerprinting of Roma Gypsies in Italian camps did not amount to ethnic discrimination and was in line with EU law.

European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot's spokesman Michele Cercone said earlier on Thursday the Italian census did not seek ''data based on ethnic origin or religion."

The Italian government's fingerprinting of Gypsies has the sole aim of ''identifying persons who cannot be identified in any other way,'' he said.

The fingerprinting of children was only being carried out ''in strictly necessary cases and as the ultimate possibility of identification,'' Cercone said.

However, the Commission would continue to monitor the way the survey was being carried out, Cercone said.

The fingerprinting campaign has been criticised by human rights organisations, the UN children's charity UNICEF, the European Parliament and the Romanian Government, on the grounds that it had inflamed anti-immigrant feeling in Italy and encouraged vigilante attacks.

In June Gypsy camps in Naples were set on fire in arson attacks after a Roma Gypsy girl was accused of trying to steal a baby.

The Roma census was compared by both Jewish and Catholic groups in Italy to Nazi racial discrimination and persecution.

The Italian government argues that the census is intended to stop Gypsy children begging and stealing, but also to help them gain access to the Italian health and education systems.

Maroni has defended the dismantling of illegal Roma camps and other measures targeting illegal immigrants, including expulsions.

He claims the government wants to identify those who have the right to stay in Italy and make sure they can live in "decent conditions".

There are an estimated 160,000 Roma Gypsies in Italy, nearly half of whom were born in Italy and have Italian citizenship.

Govt hails EC gypsy ruling

2008-09-04 18:56

(ANSA) - Rome, September 4 - The Italian government on Thursday hailed a ruling from the European Commission that a controversial census of gypsy camps was OK.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi said he had always been certain that the census would be approved by the European Union.

''I had no doubt, I was certain about this response from the European Union, given that our measure was in line with EU law,'' Berlusconi said after the EC said the census did discriminate against gypsies.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said he was also certain that the EU would approve the measures, which included fingerprinting norms criticised by human rights groups. ''Today's confirmation makes up for all the accusations and insults I have received,'' Maroni said.

Maroni added that he was expecting three other decrees to be approved.

The centre-left opposition said that the EU had approved a version of the census that had been revised to address human rights concerns.

The Italian Red Cross said Thursday that the first major camp census, across Rome, had so far covered 25 camps and identified more than 1,500 people.

The survey started at the beginning of August and is slated to end by October 15.

In its ruling, the EC said the census does not discriminate against the Roma community and is in line with European Union law.

An analysis of an Italian report on the census showed it did not seek ''data based on ethnic origin or religion,'' said Michele Cercone, spokesman for European Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot.

A controversial fingerprinting programme has the sole aim of ''identifying persons who cannot be identified in any other way,'' he said.

The fingerprinting of minors was only being carried out ''in strictly necessary cases and as the ultimate possibility of identification,'' Cercone said. Rome had worked with Brussels to ''correct measures that could give rise to protests,'' he said..

Barrot will continue to monitor how the survey is being implemented and what its results are, Cercone said.

Maroni launched the camp scheme this summer to clean up camps and get a picture of who was living in them by fingerprinting occupants including children.

Maroni, a leading member of the rightwing Northern League, has consistently defended himself from charges of discriminating against Roma.

He has insisted the census was not aimed against any specific ethnic group or spurred by a wave of crime-linked anti-immigrant feeling.

The fingerprinting campaign has been slammed by the European parliament, human rights groups and the Romanian government.

In the face of protests, Italy agreed with the European Union to make sure the scheme complied with human rights norms. It also announced it would require all Italian citizens to have their prints put on ID cards starting in 2010.

But the Council of Europe (CE), Europe's rights body, said last month that Italian politicians had lacked ''the moral leadership'' to face down the kind of anti-gypsy sentiment that led to incidents such as the torching of camps in Naples in June.

Berlusconi defended the scheme as a means of helping Roma integrate as well as stopping gypsies forcing their children to beg and steal.

Also Thursday, the Vatican urged the EU to carry through on public commitments they had made to safeguard ethnic minorities like gypsies.

EU states should treat gypsy communities as they would other institutions, Msgr Agostino Marchetto, head of the Vatican department that deals with migrant and traveler issues, told Vatican daily l'Osservatore Romano.

''This 'institutionalisation' brings with it the advantage of spurring (EU) states to become aware of the EU programmes that have been approved,'' Marchetto said at the end of the World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Gypsies in Freising, Germany.

Roma protest loaded survey question on "gypsy crime"

By MTI

The head of the National Roma Council has protested against a survey published on Wednesday which had juxtaposed the words "gypsy" and "crime" in a question.

Orban Kolompar slammed Nezopont Institute's survey, which found that 91 percent of those asked said they thought "gypsy crime" was a real issue. Kolompar said that the term was unacceptable and that the question was an incitement of hatred against the Roma minority.

Agoston Samuel Mraz, who directed Nezopont's survey in question, told MTI that his institute had applied the phrase because it was used both in public discourse and in sociology.

He noted that 77 percent of respondents in the survey thought Roma people were more inclined to commit crimes than others. "Nezopont thinks that reducing such a high level of prejudice is an urgent public responsibility," he said.

The slogan "gypsy crime" was used with increased frequency by far-right groups after a driver, whose car hit a Roma girl but did not hurt her, was lynched by the girl's family members in October 2006.

Following the incident, public dignitaries, politicians, criminal experts and Roma officials joined in protest against using the derogatory term and against efforts to stigmatise the Roma community.

Demolitions Continue In The “Gypsy” Neighborhood Of Istanbul

Demolitions continue in the Sulukule neighborhood of the Roma People in Istanbul. The members of the Sulukule Platform say that they are demolishing the buildings without taking precautions, while people and children are around. The people cannot even call for an ambulance.

Bia news center - İstanbul
28-08-2008

There was demolition in the Sulukule district of Istanbul today. Sulukule is where Roma People (who are commonly known as Gypsies, but some Roma consider the term pejorative) have been in Istanbul for centuries. The Fatih municipality in İstanbul has been trying to remove them as part of its Urban Transformation Project. Today it was the turn of the Neslişah and Hatice Sultan neighborhoods; the demolition in these neighborhoods lasted until the evening.

“Five-Story building came down; the one next to it collapsed”

Viki Ciprut from the Sulukule Platform says that the demolition done without any notices and necessary precautions cause much damage.

“Demolishing a five-story building resulted in the collapse of the building next to it. Those who used to live there have no idea what they are going to do.”

“They hid the demolition from the media”

Ciprut says that the municipality stops the work of demolishing when the media comes, and they resume it after they leave.

“They did not take any precautions, they demolished it and left”

Neşe Ozan from the Sulukule Platform says they demolished ten buildings in three streets.

“Kuruçınar Street is covered with rubble. The electricity and telephones are gone. They did their work without taking any precautions, when there were people and children around. If an emergency comes up, we are unable to call for an ambulance.”

“They did not take into consideration the Sulukule Report”

In spite of the June 11, 2008, report of the Human Rights Committee of the Governorship that utilities, water, food and health services need to be given to the area, nobody sends any aid to the area, says Ciprut.

“What we experienced here today shows that they did not take into consideration the report at all.” (CU/EZÖ/TB)

Tourist attacks stir Italy migrant row

Paola Totaro, London
August 27, 2008

ITALY is engaged in a bitter debate about immigration and personal security after two foreign couples were robbed and the women raped in separate incidents.

The first incident, the brutal beating of a Dutch tourist and the rape of his wife on a camping and cycling holiday in Rome, has been blamed on two Romanians. A young German couple camping in a small beachside town near Naples suffered a similar attack at the hands of three men.

However, hostility towards the local Gypsy encampments may prove to be ill directed as police investigating that crime have now arrested a 17-year-old who is said to have Mafia links.

The incidents prompted rancorous comments from right-wing politicians.

Rome's anti-immigration Mayor, Gianni Alemanno, sparked fury when he suggested the Dutch couple, in effect, asked for violence after choosing an isolated camping site. He said the place they decided to sleep in was a place "abandoned by God and men", and they had asked "a flock of Romanian shepherd immigrants" for directions.

Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing Government this year took a series of measures to crack down on clandestine migrants. The program included fingerprinting thousands of Romanian Gypsies who have thronged to major Italian cities.

The experience of Gypsies and Travellers in Britain

Emma Nuttall from the Friends, Families and Travellers charity works with English Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers. She spoke to Sadie Robinson about the struggles they endure

Gypsies and Travellers in Britain are socially excluded, powerless and often quite dispersed. The lack of resources and services available to them has a drastic impact on their lives. Educational achievement among Gypsies and Travellers is the lowest of any ethnic group in Britain.

They have the highest rate of infant mortality, the lowest life expectancy and higher rates of maternal deaths. Gypsies and Travellers live between ten and 12 years less than the settled population. They have higher rates of anxiety and depression.

You're incredibly vulnerable if you're camped out on the roadside. We've had cases where people have been firebombed.

I think the tabloid press encourages people to see Gypsies and Travellers as not being human. This makes them victims of the last socially acceptable racism. But the reality is that where there are well established sites there are usually no problems.

Currently there are about 4,500 Gypsy and Traveller families in England that don't have an official site to live on. So they stop on the roadside and get moved on. We've worked with some families that have been moved over 50 times in a year.

Compulsory

The tabloid newspapers say it's outrageous that families are living on the roadside but they don't ask why the families are there – they haven't got an authorised site to live on.

This makes it very difficult to access education, employment and healthcare, not to mention basics like electricity and running water.

Local authorities used to have a duty to provide sites for Gypsies and Travellers under the 1968 Caravan Sites Act. People paid council tax and paid rent to live there.

The Tories' Criminal Justice Act in 1994 changed this. They thought that it was too costly to provide sites and that Gypsies and Travellers should buy their own land.

The act also recommended that local authorities should identify which land would be suitable for Gypsy and Traveller sites. But this wasn't compulsory – and only one local authority followed the advice.

This meant that whatever land Gypsies or Travellers bought was disputed. People would pressure councillors and say they didn't want gypsies living near them. Councillors wouldn't identify land that could be used for sites.

The Housing Act in 2004 introduced a duty on councils to do what they called a "Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs assessment".

The act said that once the councils worked out how many pitches on sites were needed, the local authority had to allocate suitable land to meet that need. Their housing strategy would also have to say how the sites would be delivered.

But the problem is that, where many Travellers have bought land, they haven't managed to obtain planning permission.

The main stumbling block with the 2004 act is the length of time the process takes. It is so slow. Meanwhile you've got thousands of families stuck on the roadside.

'Why do the Italians hate us?'

Dan McDougall
The Observer, Sunday August 17 2008

It is an image that shocked the world: two young Gypsy children lie dead for three hours on an Italian beach while, feet away, a carefree couple enjoy a leisurely picnic. Dan McDougall travels to the Roma camps of Naples to meet the dead girls' mother and finds fear and bitterness - and a country in danger of forgetting its far-Right past.

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Czech far-right party activist to address BNP

Jo Adetunji
The Guardian, Saturday August 16 2008

The head of an ultra-right wing party which advocates a "final solution" for Roma in the Czech Republic is due to speak at the annual festival held by the British National party today. Petra Edelmannova, chair of the Czech National party, is booked to give a 25-minute speech at the BNP's Red White and Blue festival in the village of Denby in Derbyshire.

The event faces strong opposition from local residents and anti-racism campaigners who are mounting a demonstration. The protest has been organised by a number of groups including Unite Against Facism (UAF), Love Music Hate Racism and Derby Racial Equality Council. The TUC and unions CWU and Unite are giving their support. UAF said it was expecting more than 500 people and coaches from around the country.

Edelmannova's party recently announced it was working on a 150-page "study" called The Final Solution to the Gypsy Issue in the Czech Lands, which it said it would present as part of a 2010 general election campaign.

Although the title evokes the Nazi plan to eradicate Jews in wartime Germany, the party told Lidove Noviny, a national Czech newspaper, its aim is only to offer Roma voluntary relocation to land bought in India. The NS is a marginal party in the Czech Republic, gaining only 0.17% of votes in the 2006 parliamentary elections. Judy Mallaber, MP for Amber Valley, said she had deep concerns. "[The BNP's] attempts to present a respectable image are still masking some deeply disturbing underlying views."

Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP, said: "There is a Gypsy problem there. What's wrong with people who talk frankly about their problems?"

Gypsy leaders accuse Italy of discrimination

WARSAW, Poland: Gypsy leaders attending a ceremony at the former Auschwitz death camp Saturday accused Italy of harassment and discrimination, a news agency reported.

"Over the past year in Italy, we have had to deal with a situation unprecedented in the history of postwar Europe," said Roman Kwiatkowski, the president of the Association of Roma in Poland, according to Poland's PAP news agency.

"For the first time since the end of World War II, the authorities of a state are actively engaged in policies of repression and discrimination against an ethnic or national minority, in this case the Roma."

Kwiatkowski spoke at an event marking the 64th anniversary of the Nazis' gassing of the most of the remaining 2,900 Gypsy inmates at Auschwitz.

In recent weeks, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government has come under fire for plans to fingerprint Roma living in Italy.

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Romanian president slams Italy's gypsy rules

ROME (AFP) — Romanian President Traian Basescu has hit out at Italy's tough new stance towards gypsies Thursday, according to comments reported by ANSA news agency after a meeting with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome.

"Romania does not approve, I repeat, does not approve, in part, or in large part, of measures taken by the Italian government," Basescu was quoted as saying during a joint press conference with Berlusconi, according to the Italian translation of remarks made in Romanian.

"Roma citizens are citizens with full rights in the European Union and should be treated as such," he added.

Basescu visited Romanian gypsies in a shantytown outside Rome before his meeting with Berlusconi.

"We understand part of the measures taken by the Italian government, but we cannot agree with treatment going beyond the norms of the European Union," he had earlier said in the camp in Rome's Magliana suburb.

Tough new immigration policies in Italy have focused on Roma, whom many Italians blame for rising crime across the country.

A promised crackdown featured heavily in Berlusconi's winning election campaign in April.

The government recently ushered in a plan to fingerprint gypsies, including children, and send police into the camps to take those fingerprints by force if necessary.

Bucharest said it was concerned by the new measures and has asked that Romanian diplomatic representatives be allowed to observe what the Italian authorities say is a census-gathering exercise.

Berlusconi told Basescu during their meeting that fingerprinting to identify citizens "is a common practice in numerous European countries" and that his government plans to extend it "to all Italian citizens."

Basescu and Berlusconi appeared to agree that the issue of how to deal with the Roma was a "problem" in both their countries.

"We recognise that we have an unresolved problem at home, that of the Roma minority. We propose to the Italian government to collaborate to resolve this problem," said Basescu.

Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni will travel next week to Bucharest for talks with this Romanian counterpart on how to integrate the Roma population using EU funds.

The European Commission has asked Italy to report on the conditions under which its census of Roma is being conducted.

The Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, has Italy's measures signified a "worrying" step away from international law.

Rome said those concerns are "totally unfounded."