Gov promises action on sea gypsy issues

PHUKET: Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop has promised to investigate and clear up issues faced by the impoverished sea gypsy community in Rawai.

The announcement came following a protest at Phuket Provincial Hall on April 7 by members of the ‘30 Communities Network’ who demanded the Governor take swift action to solve disputes over land ownership and issues over access to utilities.

About 300 sea gypsy families who currently occupy 200 rai of beachfront land in Rawai claim the right to occupy the area, saying the community has been established there for several generations.
However, a number of other people have come forward claiming ownership of different sections of the land around Rawai Pier.

The boundaries between private and state land in the area are yet to be clearly delineated.

As head of a newly-established committee on issues facing sea gypsy communities, Governor Wichai is scheduled to meet with provincial and municipal officers on April 21 in order to come up with solutions for the issue of access to electricity and water supply.

Those solutions will be announced soon after the April 21 meeting, it was reported.

Gypsy families squat in abandoned Mijas urbanisation

By h.b. - Apr 14, 2009 - 8:31 AM

The police are waiting for a judge's order to evict the 150 or so people in the Golden Hills development

Gypsy families have started squatting in an embargoed urbanisation in Mijas where they have justified the abandonment of the flats, said to be in a very poor condition, for their occupation saying otherwise they would be on the streets.

Some 150 people started to occupy the Golden Hills development of 34 apartments on Sunday. The building is owned by the bank after being embargoed from the developer, and there has been no work at the site for the past two years.

Most of those now occupying the abandoned building are young couples with children who have moved from social housing in Molino de Viento.

Local police and the Guardia Civil are now waiting for a decision from a judge regarding a possible eviction of the families.

Serbia: Gypsies' Houses Torn Down in Belgrade

Sunday, April 12th, 2009 @ 00:00 UTC
by Sinisa Boljanovic

This July, Belgrade will be the host of the 25th World University Games. Participants will stay in the newly-built University Village. There used to be some 350 Gypsy houses near that place, the majority of which were built illegally 30 years ago. Following an order of the City Department of Inspections, about 50 houses were torn down on April 3. A few dozen children, women, old and sick Gypsies spent the night without shelter.

Gypsies protested and asked city council for other lodging in Belgrade. Instead, the authorities offered them to be moved in temporary containers to Boljevci, a small settlement about 20 kilometers from the center of Belgrade.

But residents of Boljevci protested as well. They didn’t want to give shelter to Gypsies: they threatened that they would set fire to them and their containers.

Because of this, many NGOs, which supported the Gypsies, talked about racism.

(MORE)

Gypsy families threaten to take to the streets

FIFTY-THREE gypsy families from the troubled Quinta da Fonte council estate in Loures say they will again take to the streets and demonstrate if they are forced to live side-by-side with hostile, non-gypsy Portuguese families.

According to their spokesman José Fernandes, the gypsy community, which was ordered back to their apartments last week after camping out in the Loures municipal park, are awaiting a favourable reply from the Lisbon Civil Governor to the effect that they will be re-housed.

The demands come in the wake of violence which erupted a fortnight ago on the council estate between rival families of gypsies and black African-Portuguese in which cars were smashed, shots were fired and people were beaten up.

However, the Câmara Municipal de Loures maintains its position that it will not re-house disgruntled families who will lose their rights to social apartments if they refuse to return to them.

The 53 gypsy families who still refuse to return to the estate are living with friends and relatives, although José Fernandes admitted that “not everyone (had) managed to sort out a roof over their heads.”

“If we don’t get a favourable solution then we will take to the streets in demonstration again, keeping within the law as we always have done,” he added.

Insufficient Housing for the Gypsy Population in Sofia

The problem with the supply of housing for the gypsy population in Sofia is a hard one to solve because Sofia Municipality has no more than 50 apartments available while the applicants for housing are over thirty thousand.

The Secretary of Sofia Municipality Rossen Zheliazkov said at the Municipal Council after being asked what measure will be taken regarding the illegally inhabiting gypsies from the Batolova vodenitza district.

Zheliazkov stressed that the municipality must take the responsibility to provide terrains for gypsy housing while the State must have a national policy towards the minority.

Meanwhile the City Council decided to spend over 2 million on covering the damages in the vicinity around the exploded military storage facility in Chelopechene.