My Gypsy childhood

Roxy Freeman never went to school. But at the age of 22, she decided to get a formal education, forcing her to face up to the prejudices that blight her Gypsy community – and to shackle her wandering spirit.

Roxy Freeman
The Guardian, Monday 7 September 2009

The receptionist looked at me with disdain when I walked into Suffolk College asking to enrol. Their access course for mature students didn't have any entry requirements as such, but the receptionist warned me it was an advanced, intensive course, and there seemed to be a blank space under "educational history" on my application form. When I explained that I wasn't a dropout, I just hadn't gone to school, she looked even more scornful.

I was 22 and had never spent a day in a classroom in my life; an alien concept for many people but common in Gypsy and Traveller families. There are more than 100,000 nomadic Travellers and Gypsies in the UK, and 200,000 who live in permanent housing. Many, like me, never attend school, while others are illiterate because formal education is not a priority in our culture.

My upbringing was unusual, but not unique. Until I was eight my family lived on the road, travelling around Ireland by horsedrawn wagon. I was one of six children, with three more half-sisters, and our family was considered small. Having 12 or 13 children was common among Travellers in Ireland.

Marrying first cousins is also common among Gypsies (and a potential genetic timebomb), my parents come from very different backgrounds. My mother was born into an upper-class American family. On her gap year she literally ran away with a Gypsy – my father, who bred horses. Both are extremely intelligent and open-minded people who wanted to bring us up in a stimulating, free and fulfilling environment.

Instead of going to school, my siblings and I, like many children from travelling families, were taught about the arts, music and dance. Our education was learning about wildlife and nature, how to cook and how to survive. I didn't know my times tables but I could milk a goat and ride a horse. I could identify ink caps, puff balls and field mushrooms and knew where to find wild watercress and sorrel. By the age of eight or nine I could light a fire, cook dinner for a family of 10 and knew how to bake bread on an open fire.

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SOLE STREET: Complaints about gypsies are 'racist' says farm owner

1:55pm Monday 24th August 2009

By Michael Purton

A FARM owner has hit back at criticism of her decision to rent a field to gypsies, saying the complaints are racist.

Last week Beverley Smit rented one field of her 50 acre home, Cranbourne Farm in Sole Street, to a travelling pentecostal gypsy church.

Around 300 people in almost 200 caravans stayed in the field off Copt Hall Road until Sunday (August 23), holding services and welcoming local residents to join them.

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However, many residents complained to Gravesham Council, with leader Councillor Mike Snelling saying he had been “inundated with calls”, and a Daily Mail article today called Mrs Smit a “villain”.

The 56-year-old, who has owned the farm for ten years, said: “The people who stayed in the field are Christians who want to spread the word of God, and they caused no trouble while they were here.

Slovakia latest flashpoint for anti-gypsy feeling

By Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Tom Nicholson in Bratislava

Published: August 10 2009 03:00 Last updated: August 10 2009 03:00

Tensions between Slovak nationalists and the country's large Roma minority escalated over the weekend when riot police had to break up an anti-gypsy march in the country's east.

About 200 members of the far-right Slovenska Pospolitost (Slovak Brotherhood) pelted police with rocks and bottles on Saturday in the eastern Slovak town of Sarisske Michalany.

The mostly shaven-headed young men were protesting against what they termed "Roma terror" in Slovakia. Five policemen were injured, along with two skinheads, and more than 30 arrests were made.

The march was called after Roma teenagers were accused of beating up an elderly man last week. The victim lost an eye and suffered a fractured skull and broken facial bones. Two boys, aged 15 and 16, are in custody on assault charges.

The unrest in Slovakia is part of a regional increase in attacks on Roma minorities by far-right groups, which began before the economic crisis but seems to have become worse as the region's economies have plunged into recession.

The Budapest-based European Roma Rights Centre says there have been firebombings and shootings against gypsies in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary over the past 18 months, and that eight -people have died.

In Hungary, police have set up a task force to catch what they believe is a gang targeting gypsies. Maria Balogh, who is thought to be the sixth victim of the group, was buried on Friday. Her 13-year-old daughter was wounded in the attack in which she died and remains in hospital.

In the Czech Republic, relations have become so poisonous that Canada re-imposed visa requirements for Czech citizens after hundreds of Roma applied for asylum.

Gypsy migrants in Italy, many of them from Romania, have also been the targets of attacks by local mobs.

Slovenska Pospolitost was formed in 1996 and is led by Marian Kotleba, a former secondary school teacher, who was among those arrested on Saturday.

Several gypsy organisations sent an open letter to Slovak authorities and to the European Commission, demanding action.

"The fear, which we - the Roma - feel when observing the situation in neighbouring Hungary, Italy and other countries of the European Union make us fear for our lives and the lives of our children, whom we send to schools, shops and streets in fear - only because we are Roma," reads the letter, according to Tasr, the Slovak news agency.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.

Burial for victim of attacks on Hungary's Gypsies

The Associated Press
Friday, August 7, 2009; 1:15 PM

KISLETA, Hungary -- Hundreds of people gathered Friday to pay their respects at the funeral of a 45-year-old woman, the sixth fatal victim in a series of attacks against Gypsies in Hungary.

Police say the attacks are linked, may have been committed by the same small group, and that the weapons used in Monday's shooting of Maria Balogh and her 13-year-old daughter in their home in Kisleta, a small village in eastern Hungary, had been used in at least two of the previous attacks.

Balogh's daughter survived the shooting and is recuperating in a hospital.

Police have 100 officers working on the crimes, the first of which took place in July 2008, and this week doubled the reward for information that could solve all the attacks to 100 million forints (euro370,000, $525,000).

The attacks usually have been carried out at homes at the edge of small villages near highways providing a quick escape route.

Balogh and her daughter were attacked Monday before dawn but were discovered only hours later when Balogh's sister came to pick them up for work at a tobacco farm.

Gypsies, or Roma as they sometimes prefer to be called, are among the poorest and least-educated Hungarians. They make up about 5 percent of Hungary's population of 10 million and many lost their jobs as the communist system crumbled and the large state-run factories which guaranteed employment were closed or privatized.

Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai expressed his condolences to the family and said that the murderers had attacked the whole Hungarian nation.

"To drive back extremism, to hold society together and to improve on the condition of Gypsies is not simply a government task," Bajnai said. "It is also a national responsibility."

Hungary Gypsy woman killed, daughter hurt

BUDAPEST, Hungary, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- A Gypsy woman was shot to death and her daughter was seriously injured Monday in northeast Hungary in what was characterized as a racial assault, police said.

The mother and her daughter, 13, were attacked in their home on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Kisleta, a local government official told the Budapest Times.

Kisleta Mayor Sandor Penzsesz said neighbors heard three to four shots.

Preliminary results on the crime scene indicate it was the latest in a series of racially motivated assaults against Gypsies in Hungary, a police statement said.

The girl was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, Kisleta police spokeswoman Rita Fedor said, the Times reported.

At least six Gypsies, or Romanies as they are formally called, were killed in the past year in Hungary.

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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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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Czech neo-Nazis air anti-Gypsy TV ad

Published: May 21, 2009 at 10:42 AM

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, May 21 (UPI) -- The Czech public television network said Thursday it will sue a far-right party for submitting an anti-Gypsy racist ad so it will not have to air it again.

Czech television received the National Party video clip, which promises a "final solution" of the Gypsy problem, and broadcast it Wednesday, the first day of a publicity campaign for the European Parliament elections in June, Prague Radio said.

Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer condemned the anti-Romany video as illegal, the radio said.

A Czech television spokesperson said the station complied with a law that orders it to air all ads received from political parties in the pre-election period.

The spokesperson said the ad will not air again and the network will file a lawsuit against the National Party, accusing it of racism.

Michael Kocab, Czech minister for minorities and human rights said the station should have obeyed the criminal code, which bans distributing racial hate messages, instead of observing the election law.

Interior Minister Jan Pecina said he plans to try to ban the far-right National party.

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.

Gypsy vigilantes operate in Czech Republic

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, May 4 (UPI) -- Gypsy vigilantes have been deployed in some regions of the Czech Republic in a bid to oppose rising extremism, Prague Radio said.

Gypsy activists, who call themselves Romanies, staged the first ever countrywide peaceful protests Sunday, sparked by an arson assault in mid-April on a Romany family that left a 2-year-old girl hospitalized with serious injuries, the radio said Monday.

Several thousand Gypsy protesters gathered Sunday in 14 Czech towns to demonstrate against discrimination of Gypsies.

In Chomutov, a town 50 miles northwest of Prague, police had to intervene when several dozen ultra-right extremists, shouting Nazi slogans, attacked one of the Romany marches.

Romany activists said they will not hesitate to fight back if their lives are threatened by neo-Nazis. Vigilante groups are now operating in some parts of the country, the radio said.

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

Fifth gypsy murder raises ethnic tensions in Hungary

Published Date: 30 April 2009
By Matthew Day

THOUSANDS of Hungarian gypsies attended the funeral yesterday of the latest victim in a series of murders that have stoked ethnic tensions and prompted fears that far-right extremists are waging a bloody secret war against the country's largest minority.

Jeno Koka, 54, was gunned down last week in the courtyard of his home as he set off to his work in a factory.

It came weeks after a gypsy man and his four-year-old son were shot dead after fleeing their home, which had been set on fire by assa

Mr Koka's shooting brings the total of murdered gypsies to five in less than a year, and police suspect the killings are related. Matching DNA samples were found at some of the scenes.

"These are professional killers," justice minister Tibor Draskovics said. "Neither the police nor I will rest till we have caught them."

The clinical execution of Mr Koka – a single shot to the heart – implies, police say, that the murderer had firearms training, so inquiries include the armed forces and even the police.

But so far the only leads are that the killer, or killers, may use a black car, and live in Budapest, as the murders have taken place near a motorway.

Gypsy rights groups have accused the authorities of complacency when it comes to protecting gypsies, or Roma as they are known.

The killings have raised tensions between the country's gypsies, who make up 6 per cent of the population, and the Hungarian majority.

Relations between the two groups deteriorated in February after the murder of one of the country's leading handball players, allegedly by a gang of Roma, outside a nightclub.

Far-right groups launched a wave of anti-Roma demonstrations, and rights groups believe attacks on gypsies have risen.

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

As Economic Turmoil Mounts, So Do Attacks on Hungary’s Gypsies

NYT
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: April 26, 2009

TISZALOK, Hungary — Jeno Koka was a doting grandfather and dedicated worker on his way to his night-shift job at a chemical plant last week when he was shot dead at his doorstep. To his killer, he was just a Gypsy, and that seems to have been reason enough.

Prejudice against Roma — widely known as Gypsies and long among Europe’s most oppressed minority groups — has swelled into a wave of violence. Over the past year, at least seven Roma have been killed in Hungary, and Roma leaders have counted some 30 Molotov cocktail attacks against Roma homes, often accompanied by sprays of gunfire.

But the police have focused their attention on three fatal attacks since November that they say are linked. The authorities say the attacks may have been carried out by police officers or military personnel, based on the stealth and accuracy with which the victims were killed.

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Czech Gypsies to protest across country

PRAGUE, Czech Republic, April 24 (UPI) -- Activists of the Romany, or Gypsy, minority in the Czech Republic said they plan countrywide protests against rising extremism and discrimination.

Leaders of the minority, estimated at 300,000 members by Czech authorities, said the protests will be organized in some 15 towns and cities on Sunday, May 3, Prague Radio said Friday.

The protests are coming amidst increased political tensions sparked by the last week's neo-Nazi march in the northern Czech town of Usti nad Labem and the firebombing of a Romany family's home in the villlage of Vitkov, in the northeast region of Opava.

A 2-year-old girl was in critical condition with burns on 80 percent of her body after a petrol bomb was thrown into her parents' home. Her parents were also hospitalized with serious injuries.

The Romany activists have offered a reward for information on those responsible for the Vitkov attack, Prague Radio said.

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.

Hungarian Neo-Nazi lead war on gypsies

22 April, 2009, 09:30

In Hungary, fascist groups are targeting Roma gypsies, but the government seems to turn a blind eye on the problem of ethnic minorities, and offers no protection for them.

A cold and brutal crime has torn a young family apart. Robert and his five-year-old son were shot dead, and his two other children seriously injured when their home was attacked. A homemade bomb was thrown through the front door and immediately sent the entire house up in flames. The young family had just finished building their small but modern house.

Their only crime was being Roma gypsies.

Robert’s family lives next door, and are reminded daily of the terror of the tragedy, but what haunts them more is the way the criminal investigation is being carried out.

“They pretended not to see 18 bullet holes in the small boy’s body. How is it possible that an experienced police official could not see this? Then it was reported that the fire was electrical. But there are remnants of a bomb everywhere,” says Robert’s mother Erzsebet Csorba.

The European Roma rights centre strongly supports the family’s claims.

“The police were not acknowledging that a murder had taken place. I’m not aware that there has been any progress,” said Rob Kushen from the European Roma Rights Centre in the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

Fighting for their rights, activists also fear that the economic crisis will lead to an increase in hate crimes against Roma in poorer EU countries.

“So far they have done a good job in keeping the peace – which is a recipe for disaster,” Kushen believes.

Attacks on Roma haven’t only increased since the onset of the crisis, but a neo-Nazi trend is also growing in Hungary. The far-right Jobbik party, said to be affiliated with a banned fascist group called the Magyar Guarda, is growing in popularity. They often hold protests against Roma, insisting they are criminals.

Bela Kovacs, President of the Jobbik Party for a Better Hungary is unequivocal in his views:

“Gypsy crimes are growing every day, and it's getting so bad that people are afraid to go out at night,” he said.

But the party refused to comment on its connection with the extremist group which often attends their protests.

Robert’s family believes the Magyar Guarda brutally attacked their loved ones, and will never be punished, especially under the wing of a growing political party.

In the past year alone in Hungary, there have been 18 attacks on Roma homes, and six people have been killed. No one has been caught.

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.

Ombudsman in firestorm over ‘gypsy crime’ comments

Written by Attila Leitner
Thursday, 16 April 2009

Although civil rights ombudsman Máté Szabó clarified his comments on “gypsy crime”, human rights associations continued to demand his resignation last week.

President László Sólyom met with Szabó, reportedly telling him that his remarks had endangered the public’s trust in his office and warned that the protection of rights can only be effective if the four ombudsmen work together.

The president expressed his hope that Szabó will manage to get the trust of the people back by continuing his civil rights work, which has already revealed numerous irregularities. A statement from the ombudsman’s office said Szabó felt the meeting had been instructive.

In an interview with the news weekly Figyelő, Szabó said that Hungarian society needs to be warned about “gypsy crimes”. According to the ombudsman “gypsy crime” is a special type of “livelihood delinquency”, often carried out in groups. “This is a collectivist, nearly tribal society, which stands in sharp contrast with the Hungarian society’s individualist approach”, Szabó said, adding that the state has a crime prevention role and “if a criminal profile is seen, then society needs to be warned, and it has to be called what it is”.

“I am glad that the ombudsmen for data protection and minority rights would like to solve this problem, but without the majority commissioner, myself, this is not possible”, said Szabó adding again it is in the best interest of society to be warned if it is threatened by a specific group of criminals.

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) said that such comments coming from one of the most important persons in human rights protection were unacceptable and requested that the ombudsman put out a statement making it clear that his words were improper and offensive, instead of trying to blame the press.

In his statement the commissioner said an “unfortunate, but not malicious” headline was the cause of the outrage, adding that, just as before, he condemns racism in all its manifestations, whether in words or in actions.

A joint statement by a number of Roma and human rights organisations said that the interview and statement afterwards made it clear that the ombudsman cannot properly fulfil this high office.

The Eötvös Károly Institute noted that, besides the fact that the ombudsman’s comments were unacceptable, they make it clear that he believes the office is there to protect the majority against the minority, which shows that the ombudsman has no clear idea of what the protection of civil rights means.

In order to remove an ombudsman from office, the commissioner needs to resign or must be dismissed by a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

MOB ATTACKS GYPSY CAMP IN SOUTHERN CHILE

Written by Cathal Sheerin
Monday, 13 April 2009

A mob of more than 100 people attacked a gypsy encampment near southern Chile's Puerto Montt (Region X) last Friday. The attackers reportedly sought to avenge the death of a local resident, whom they wrongly believed was killed by a gypsy.

The crowd of locals used fire and stones as weapons against what authorities called a peaceful gypsy community that had been there since November 2008.

The crowd had been acting in the belief that a gypsy was responsible for the recent hit-and run accident which killed a local man, Juan Alvarado, 29. Police maintain there is no gypsy connection to the accident.

Four cars were set on fire, and tents and other property were destroyed as the gypsies fled to safety. During the assault, the mob tried to stop the gypsies from escaping. The police tried to help the gypsies, but the crowd turned on them.

When a local fire-fighting unit arrived at the site to put out the flames, it, too, was attacked by locals throwing stones.

District Attorney Sergio Coronado emphasized there was no connection between the gypsies and the car-death case. “The line of investigation does not lead to the gypsies. They were ruled out at the very start. The investigation is leading in another direction, and the family of the victim is aware of this,” he said. Local officials said the gypsy community was a victim of “prejudices” on the part of the locals who attacked them.

Francisco Estevez, the director of the Region X Division of Social Organizations, said he hoped to meet with Regional Governor Sergio Galilea in the next few days to discuss the matter. Estevez said the anti-discrimination initiative currently under discussion in a Senate committee will offer victims of discrimination special recourse in law and will provide special sanctions for those convicted of discrimination crimes.

The gypsies did not formally complain to the police after the attack, but did abandon their site.

Gypsy camp spokesperson Juan Carlos Farias said his group will travel to Santiago to meet with the “King of the Gypsies” in order to discuss the matter and consider what legal action they might pursue.

Locals have asked that the gypsies never be allowed back into Puerto Montt. Octavio Alvarado, head of a local neighborhood association, asked for concrete measures to be taken against the gypsies returning. “This place has been converted into a dump, full of waste and rats. The owner of the land should come and take a look,” he said.

Francisco Nicolich, a gypsy who fled the site on Friday said, “Gypsies have never killed anyone. Every time that something happens, gypsies are blamed.”

SOURCES: LA TERCERA, EL LLANQUIHUE
By Cathal Sheerin

Invercargill bad for abuse, gypsies say

12:21PM Tuesday Apr 14, 2009

A group of about 60 gypsies say Invercargill is among the worst places in New Zealand for abuse after visiting the city over Easter weekend for the annual Gypsy Fair.

About 60 gypsies travel throughout the country in mobile homes with their families for eight months each year.

A group of them told the Southland Times they had things thrown at them and were verbally abused during their weekend in Invercargill, as had been the case in past years.

"This is the worst town in New Zealand. We dread coming here, it's that bad," fortune teller Helena Beissel said.

They said people had been driving past their camp next to Queens Park hurling abuse, throwing eggs and bottles at their mobile homes and tooting their car horns throughout each night of their stay.

They had also wandered into their camp and banged against their mobile homes in the early hours, and a bike had also been stolen, the gypsies said.

The abuse was an annual occurrence in the city, they said, with the only city that compared being Palmerston North.

Gypsy Fair field manager Gavin Mackenzie said he believed there were about "10 to 20 bloody idiots".

"If they are not throwing eggs it's beer bottles," he said.

He also made mention of past bad behaviour in Gore.

"If you go to Gore it's dead rabbits they throw at you."

Gypsy Fair merry-go-round owner Cam Taylor said Invercargill residents were marvellous and some abuse was to be expected when you were a gypsy.

"The reality is we aren't all drug-smoking idiots."

- NZPA

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)

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.

Civil groups demand resignation of ombudsman over remarks on "Gypsy crime"

Saturday, 04 April 2009

Civil groups on Friday demanded the resignation of Hungary's ombudsman Mate Szabo, in the wake of his remarks that some crimes can be associated with the Gypsies. The ombudsman has withdrawn his statements.

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Roma Civil Rights Foundation and the European Roma Rights Center protested in a joint statement against the ombudsman's remarks, and said Szabo could not fulfill his post credibly in the future.

In a Thursday interview, Szabo said that he could see "the profile of Gypsy crime" as a form of criminal activities to make a living by members of "an almost tribal group as opposed to the highly individual nature of Hungarian society."

"When we see this profile, we must warn the people and we must also give it a name," Szabo added in the interview.

The ombudsman has violated the constitution and should withdraw his remarks, the Society for Civil Liberties (TASZ) said in a statement, adding that an official airing such views was not suitable for the position.

"Szabo stigmatises groups of people and does not have a clear view of the general ombudsman's function to protect fundamental rights," said another NGO, the Eotvos Institute, founded by former Ombudsman Laszlo Majtenyi, in a statement.

The ombudsman withdrew his statements, saying that "I have surely composed my words wrongly... and I apologise if I had offended anybody".

"I withdraw all my statements that can lead to conclusions that I'd ethnicise delinquency," Szabo said on commercial television ATV on Friday evening.

However, he also said he would only resign if organisations authorised by the constitution called him to do so.

Hungary's Roma minority is estimated at 800,000. They live mostly in dire poverty and are hit by unemployment. They are also threatened by a recent surge of attacks that claimed several lives during the past year.

Meanwhile, the paramilitary Hungarian Guard has staged demonstrative marches in villages with a significant Roma population to protest against an assumed increase in crimes which they attribute to the Roma minority.

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.

Barnet councillor Brian Coleman condemned for 'stay away gypsies' comments on BBC show

7:20am Monday 23rd March 2009

By Kevin Bradford

A Barnet councillor attracted controversy yesterday after claiming gypsies should “stay put in Ireland”.

The often outspoken Greater London Authority member for Barnet and Camden, Brian Coleman, condemned the traveller community during a debate on the BBC’s Politics Show about the potential for increased gypsy sites across London boroughs.

It came as the Greater London Authority prepares to discuss the results of the London boroughs’ gypsy and traveller accommodation needs assessment 2008, which suggests 553 new permanent pitches are required across the capital in the next five years.

Proposals could see up to 13 sites built in the borough, and managed by Barnet Council, to match the increased demand.

But speaking on the Sunday morning show, Mr Coleman said he would not welcome “one single site” in the borough, and claimed they would not be accommodating communities that had been in the UK for decades, but instead a group of people “who offer to Tarmac your drive”.

He said: “Successive councils in Barnet, Labour-controlled and Conservative, have examined the borough thoroughly and found no suitable sites.

“I do not know any councillor of any mainstream political party who would support traveller sites in their ward.

“We’re not talking traditional gypsies here, we’re not talking about this romantic vision of gypsies in attractive caravans, we’re talking about the itinerant Irish traveller community who come over and want to resurface people's drives and repair their roofs.

“This is a commuter who comes over from Ireland looking for work that should frankly stay put in Ireland.”


Father Joe Browne, chairman of the Irish traveller movement, who was also on the panel, said there is a shortage of legal sites in London which impacts negatively on gypsy groups, and went on to condemn Mr Coleman’s comments.

“I’m shocked Brian would take that attitude,” he said.

“It’s simply unacceptable to say they should stay where they are.”

Andrew Slaughter, Labour MP for Ealing Action and Shepherds Bush, responded on the show by branding Mr Coleman “loudmouthed” and saying the comments were “inflammatory and quite disgraceful”.

He said: “[The comments] would be completely unacceptable when talking about any other ethnic minority.”

Pope urges Romans to "welcome" immigrants

Richard Owen in Rome

Pope Benedict condemned "discrimination" at a council meeting with the mayor of Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI today condemned "intolerance and discrimination" and urged residents of Rome to be more welcoming towards foreign immigrants during an historic visit to the Campidoglio, the Rome city hall on Capitol Hill.

Pope Benedict - only the third pontiff to attend a Rome city council meeting, after Paul VI and John Paul II - greeted a crowd of well-wishers, including a group of Roma gypsy children holding up a "No to Racism" banner, gathered on the Campidoglio piazza in front of the office of Gianni Alemanno, the mayor of Rome.

Since gaining office in elections nearly a year ago which marked a shift to the Right both nationally and locally Mr Alemanno, a former neo-Fascist youth leader, has cracked down on crime and illegal immigration, dismantling illegal gypsy camps in the grimmer Rome suburbs. A series of rapes in the capital has been blamed on immigrants - above all Romanians - and has led to a series of vigilante attacks on targets ranging from vagrants to Romanian-owned businesses.

The perceived crime wave by immigrants has also given rise to "neighbourhood watch" patrols by residents, some authorised by the local authorities but others mounted autonomously by right wing groups. Addressing a special session of the city council in the Julius Caesar council chamber the Pope - whose titles include Bishop of Rome - said Rome had always been "a welcoming city, especially over the past centuries".

Growing immigration however had made it a "multi-ethnic and multi-religious metropolis where sometimes integration is difficult and complex". He added: "Rome will find the force to ensure that everyone respects the rules of civil co-existence and to reject every form of intolerance and discrimination". It would do this if it relied on "its ancient roots, based on Christian faith" as well as the "rule of law," he said.

The pontiff did not refer directly to recent incidents such as an attack by 20 masked men who beat up four Romanians at a kebab restaurant near a suburban park where a 14-old girl was raped, allegedly by two Romanians. Police say DNA tests have yet to prove that two Romanian men arrested for the rape were involved in it.

Instead Pope Benedict referred to "episodes of violence deplored by all which manifest a deeper unease." He said that "our city, like the rest of Italy and humanity as a whole" was facing "unprecedented cultural, social and economic challenges". Rome was increasingly populated by "people who come from other nations and belong to different cultures and religious traditions".

Mr Alemanno said the city planned to establish a centre for teenagers from troubled backgrounds which would be named after Pope Benedict in honour of his visit and as a sign of the council's "commitment to integration".

The German-born Pope, who before being elected pontiff lived for two decades in the Borgo, the medieval quarter adjoining St Peter's, as the Vatican's head of doctrine, said he had become "a little bit Roman" himself.

The last visit by a pontiff to the Campidoglio was that of John Paul II in 1998. Relations between the Vatican and the city of Rome have been complex ever since the end of papal rule and the formation of a united Italy in 1870. Relations between Italy and the Holy See were formally settled by the Lateran Pact of 1929, which defined relations between the two sovereign states. However some secular-minded and even anti-clerical residents continue to resent the influence of the Vatican in Italian affairs.

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."

Extremist group calls for gypsy expulsions

An extreme right-wing organisation has taken to the streets of Rome calling for the expulsion of the entire Roma or gypsy population from Italy.

But there has been little public support for the Forza Nuova group which is pressing for the end of the Schengen agreement which allows passport- free travel in much of the EU.

Protest organiser Roberto Fiore said: “This is a situation that requires political will. We want to suspend the Schengen agreement, which is one of the main reasons for the disaster and we want to start all the expulsions of the gypsies and at the same time we think that all the people who have committed crimes in Italy. They should be sent back to their own countries.”

A series of sex attacks in Italy is being blamed on foreigners living in the country and three rapes last weekend triggered a media frenzy and a diplomatic row with Romania.

Italy’s conservative government rushed through a law toughening penalties for sex offenders and permitting neighbourhood citizen patrols.

The President of the Association of Romanians Living in Italy says the patrols should include Romanians.

‘Gypsy crime’ versus ‘political crime’

Written by Jan Mainka, Publisher

Monday, 16 February 2009

The Veszprém murder made it clear that protection rackets remain a problem in Hungary. Secondly, and more emphatically, it demonstrated that relations between ethnic Hungarians and their fellow Gypsy citizens are at breaking point.

In public debate this social tension has overshadowed the real motive for the crime – namely extorting protection money. Enraged citizens were less worked up about the state’s inability to protect its citizens from the crime than the fact that the Veszprém knife killers were “once again” Gypsies. The focus was less on their terrible act of murder, than on the climax of an escalating ethnic conflict.

“Gypsy crime” was denounced, rather than inadequate public safety. The murderers of the Veszprém handball idol Marian Cozma and their relatives earned the hatred and the thirst for revenge of the majority of society, not only because of their crime, but also because they are Gypsies. All the pent-up frustration of highly problematic daily interaction seemed suddenly to find an outlet with the new martyr figure of Cozma. The prominence and widespread popularity of the victim, as well as the brutality of the crime caused the floodgates to open. The fronts in Hungarian society have rarely been so clearly personified. On one side there was the good-hearted sportsman who came to the aid of a restaurant employee in trouble, and on the other side the three ruthless killers whose faces the whole country has now seen. In view of this clear division of roles, regard for political correctness was abandoned and the public expression of anger became uninhibited.

Political correctness

Anyone daring to make mention of racism or ethnic prejudice in the current charged atmosphere is also guilty! Carried along by the wave of anger, politicians of all colours who generally take an evasive approach, particularly in the case of the Gypsy question, have now turned their attentions to this taboo topic more conspicuously than at any other time. After all it must gradually be dawning on them that Hungary is sitting on an ethnic powder keg that could explode at any time. Again we can see how little has been done in the two decades since the change of regime to put an end to this smouldering conflict. It is increasingly clear that the billion-forint social transfers of the past years have had barely any effect, and may even have exacerbated the issue. Not to mention the ridiculous attempt to solve the Gypsy problem by using the neutral term Roma when the Gypsies in Hungary describe themselves as Gypsies. It is surely no consolation for the relatives and friends of Cozma that he was stabbed to death not by invidious Gypsies, but by Roma citizens. In any case, if the problem is not tackled at its roots, then the term “Roma” will soon also be on track for political incorrectness.

In dubio pro reo

The term “Gypsy crime” that is increasingly used in populist and fundamentalist circles similarly ignores the crux of the problem. Even in the case of statistically proven correlations between skin colour and crime rates, we should be wary of making such unfounded generalisations in the heat of the moment. Regardless of the fact that this form of prejudgement cannot be reconciled with the principles of a state based on the rule of law, this term is misleading and tendentious. Verbally it turns a more-or-less probable correlation into a certainty. It suggests that there are only two types of Gypsies: criminals and future criminals – which, fortunately, is not the case.

Speaking sweepingly of “Gypsy crime” is just as misplaced as speaking of “political crime”, instead of referring to the suspected crimes of a certain János Zuschlag or György Hunvald, to mention the two most prominent cases of the past week. Even the fact that purely statistically there is more talk of politicians in connection with corruption and embezzlement than, for example, teachers or postal officers, does not give us the right to prejudge them.

The comparison with politicians throws light on a surprising parallel: the lax handling of state funds has contributed to both groups becoming problem groups. Access to tax money was and is made too easy for these groups, whether we are speaking of social benefits in the first case, or subsidies (Zuschlag) and revenues from the sale of state assets (Hunvald) in the second case. It is said that opportunity makes a thief. In the case of the two problem groups, this consists of too easy, opaque and inadequately monitored access to funds. Members of the underclass – not only those of Gypsy origin – continue to receive excessively generous direct and indirect social benefits without sufficient controls or requirements to do anything in return (for example ensuring that children attend school or carrying out community work).

In this way, such citizens are kept quiet, but are given no preparation for playing a successful part in the labour market. Their peripheral position in society is further cemented by this form of help. Likewise, through too easy access to state funds and positions, politicians lose their motivation to improve their material situation primarily through exemplary service to their country. Expecting this situation to change itself is just as naive as waiting for a cat that until now has been comfortably fed on pet food to suddenly turn from a cuddly toy into a proper mouse hunter.

The fundamental problem is that at the expense of society a standard of living has been put in reach of both groups that is higher than can be justified by their actual contributions to society. What was morally dubious in times of reasonably sound state finances, now simply cannot be financed any more. The state can as little afford to indiscriminately throw around social benefits, as it can to satisfy all officials on the take.

The gradual reduction of funds to both groups will lead to unwanted, but unsurprising side effects. The underclass which is comparatively lacking in motivation to work and training will increasingly try to compensate for the reduction in social support in other ways, and will do so not only by entering into employment relations on the labour market which in any case is shrinking. The possibility of violent protests, similar to those of a few years ago in Slovakia, cannot be excluded. In the case of politicians the drying up of illegal additional income sources will probably result in even stronger negative selection. Increasingly incapable politicians will have to struggle with even bigger problems. There is little that a few idealists can do to change that.

Thousands protest gov't boycott of conservative daily

By Hungary Around the Clock

Over 2,000 people demonstrated on Friday afternoon against Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány's call to cut off state advertising in and subscriptions to Magyar Hírlap over a commentary that referred to the Roma killers of Romanian handball player Marian Cozma as "murderous animals".

Addressing the gathering outside the Prime Minister's Office on Kossuth tér, Magyar Hírlap owner Gábor Széles called Gyurcsány incompetent as prime minister and said he will go down in history as having caused more damage than 1950s dictator Mátyás Rákosi. Széles accused Gyurcsány of ruining the economy, the countryside and health care and of pushing Roma into misery.

Farkas Flórián, representing Roma group Lungo Drom, said the newspaper comments were not offensive to Gypsies and that Gyurcsány, by hiding behind Gypsies, had violated freedom of the press and expression by calling for a boycott of Magyar Hírlap.

Editor István Stefka said Gyurcsány intended to shut his newspaper's mouth. Lawyer Krisztina Morvai, MEP candidate for the far right Jobbik party, called Gyurcsány "an insane Nero" whose action had again united people.

Zsolt Bayer, author of the commentary, said Gypsies have been called by that name for 700 years and this must remain so as "they are our friends". At the same time those who attack teachers, as well as murderers, robbers and thieves who happen to be Gypsies should also be called by that name, he said.

Government spokesman Dávid Daróczi told reporters elsewhere that the call for a boycott was the right decision, as it was borne out by the tone set by those addressing the rally, and the way they spoke about the state of public affairs.

Roma leader blames politicians for anti-Gypsy sentiments

By MTI

The head of Hungary's National Roma Self-Government (OCO) blamed parties in parliament for the anti-Roma sentiments experienced lately in Hungary at a press conference held in Budapest on Thursday.

Orban Kolompar was speaking in response to a debate in the press over the past few months about the existence of "Gypsy crime" or whether the ethnic background of criminals should be noted in connection with crime. The issue flared up again when suspects of the stabbing of international handball players last weekend were said to be part of or associated with a gang of Roma criminals.

Police have not found evidence for this connection, but they did take testimonies from witnesses and former gang associates which suggested a link.

The government has disassociated itself from the use of the term "Gypsy crime" and for membership of an ethnic minority to be singled out in crime statistics.

Kolompar said parties have been noncommittal about the problems of the Roma and were partly responsible for a collective blame for crimes on the Roma community. He added that they have done nothing to help the Roma create a credible political representation for dealing with important economic and social problems among their community.

Kolompar called on the Roma to think about how they see the next ten years for themselves.

He said the remarks by opposition leader Viktor Orban on Wednesday regarding Roma and crime were unfortunate.

Orban said there was no "Gypsy crime" but there were criminals that belong to the Roma minority and the serious crimes committed by Roma was on the rise, which cannot be ignored.

Kolompar asked the help of the media in "creating a normal human atmosphere which focuses primarily on the person, not political interests."

He said parties should support a Roma programme, to be designed by OCO, which would help bring about peace in society. He added that there were plans for a three-way agreement between the OCO, police and the National Association of Civil Self-Defence to train 3,000 Roma and non-Roma civil self-defence personnel as well as social workers to help improve communication among citizens.

‘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

Angry Gypsies take to the streets over posters

Saturday, 10 January 2009

Angry Roma residents of Rakamaz in northeastern Hungary took to the streets on 2 January to protest against anti-Gypsy posters plastered around the village by members of the extreme right paramilitary Magyar Gárda organisation. Some were armed with gardening equipment, and the police found one man with a samurai sword after they intervened to keep the peace. The would be swordsman is being prosecuted. The local Gárda "commander", Tamás Seres, denied this. "Some in Rakamaz believe the local Gypsy leaders want to win back voter support by trying to create conflict," he told the local news website Borsod Online. "It is unacceptable that hundreds should arm themselves, attack and lynch innocent Hungarians, and demonise the Magyar Gárda," Seres added. The spontaneous demonstration passed without incident, and the crowd of several dozen had returned home by midnight, said a police spokesman.

It is not racist to state that gypsy camps frequently cause an increase in crime and mess - it is a statement of fact

By Harry Phibbs
Last updated at 9:22 AM on 06th January 2009

The Government has issued a decree to local Councils to provide more caravan pitches for gypsies. Their argument seems to be that people have a 'right' to be gypsies and that if councils provide more authorised sites there will be less of a problem with gypsies occupying land illegally.

This is a policy of appeasement of lawlessness. If people want to spend their lives travelling around in caravans then they must operate within the law. They should also rely on finding people willing to accommodate them - not expect special favours from the state.

(MORE)

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)

Downturn Boosts Far-Right Groups

5:09pm UK, Tuesday December 23, 2008

Greg Milam, Europe correspondent

Far-right groups across Europe could be gaining support as the financial meltdown continues.

The warning comes at a time of increased racist violence and attacks on gypsy communities across Europe.

A far-right group called the Hungarian Guard, which has been accused of persecuting gypsies, says it will defy attempts to ban it, as governments become increasingly concerned at the rise of the right.

It is feared that extremist parties could make significant gains in European elections next June, particularly in eastern European countries.

In an interview with Sky News, a senior member of Hungary's right-wing Jobbik party said the financial crisis was making people look to parties they might once have called extremist.

Zsolt Varkonyi said: "They realise that they have been lied to by our leaders, our politicians, our economic experts, so perhaps it is time for them to listen to us.

Jobbik also defends its official links with Hungarian Guard. "It was formed because there is no security in Hungary for people in villages; they are robbed and they are killed.

"Talking about the image is just scratching the surface. What they wear, how they look, it's not really important."

Hungary has been among the countries hardest hit by the financial crisis. The government was forced to turn to the international community for an emergency bail-out.

Hungary has established its first national police force to deal specifically with crimes against the Roma gypsy community.

Political analyst Krisztian Szabados told Sky News: "We expect that public support for right wing extremists, which has been around 1%, will rise to at least 7%. We expect violent clashes between right-wing extremists and the gypsy population."

There have also been significant increases in violent racist attacks reported in the Czech Republic and Italy.

Hungary's far-right to defy court

A far-right group in Hungary accused of persecuting the Roma (Gypsies) minority has said it will defy a court order banning the organisation.

The Hungarian Guard Association said it was a movement not a party and could not be dissolved by a court order.

The organisation regularly marches in uniform through Roma-populated areas in protest at what it calls "Gypsy crime".

On Tuesday, a Budapest court ordered the group to be dismantled for racial discrimination against the Roma.

The Hungarian government and Roma groups welcomed the verdict.

But the Guard Association - which claims to have 1,500 adherents - said it would continue its activities as before.

The group's president, Gabor Vona, told the BBC that the court ruling was a blow to Hungarian democracy.

"As with all previous attacks, this will only increase the number of our recruits," Mr Vona said.

Critics say the association - which was formed last year - is fascist, but its supporters describe it as patriotic.

Budapest court rules to dissolve paramilitary Hungarian Guard

The Budapest Municipal Court ruled on Tuesday to dissolve the right wing paramilitary Hungarian Guard.

The court judge, while explaining the decision, referred to a march staged by the group last December in Tatarszentgyorgy and said that speeches about "Gypsy crime" made during the event had insulted the dignity of the local Roma minority, the Hungarian News Agency MTI reported.

The judge said that Hungary's public dignitaries and the parliamentary parties had all condemned the event and such speeches.

The general public might be misled to get an impression that "here comes the Guard and it will restore order," which cannot be accepted under the constitution, the judge said.

Triggering fear in itself was a violation to the rights of others, the judge said.

Gabor Vona, chairman of the Hungarian Guard, said that his group would appeal against the rule.

The crime of surviving

By Miguel A. Seman


“When they are accused, they are found guilty of trying, in every possible way, to survive,” wrote John Berger.

Eduardo Galeano is right when he says that if those who first started surviving in the darkness of the caves had been us, man would have barely lasted a little while on earth. Those first inhabitants were capable of lasting, when they were destined to disappear perhaps, because they joined forces to defend themselves and share their food.

Humanity as we know it today does not understand that the salvation of a few at the expense of many is like leaping into thin air. So much that it leaves them and it leaves us without land, water or sky. It pushes us out of the planet, which, like a very old animal, is already tired of us and wants to abandon us.

Hunger forces men to migrate from one continent to another. Some die at sea, other scratching at the doors of a world which steps on their hands so that they cannot even hold on to desert stones. The European Union has just established the right to suspend the rights of the “surplus” population by sending them, for up to eighteen months, to out-of-court confinement camps.

Sixty-nine immigrants have already died trying to reach the Spanish coast this year and forty percent of Spaniards are in favor of the criminalization of the illegal immigration.

In Italy, an important sector of the society is asking the government to clean the territory of the “trash”, while a splendid ancient fascism goes round the streets burning gypsy campsites. In the “Identification and Expulsion Canters”, where a great number of gypsy children die “accidentally”, there is a meticulous registering of minors. When the news was published, the online version of the Critica newspaper displayed many -- too many -- comments in favor of the expulsion of Romany, African, and Muslim people from the peninsula.

On June 20, the Argentine writer Jorge E. Nedich wrote a critical article for La Nacion newspaper on the resurgence of racism in Italy. What was striking, and also alarming, was that from ten messages at least nine attacked the author and the gypsies and justified the persecution.

Argentineans do not separate too much from Europe. The difference, perhaps, lies in the fact that we hide behind some makeup that shows us a little bit better to the world than how we really are. We pass laws on an equality of rights we do not believe in and we support international treaties we do not respect. The poor residents of our country, like in the history of all nations, are the internal foreigners. The rootless, the ones suspended in jails, those without sentence or destiny. The nomads that move from one province to another, from one city to another, only seeking work and food, those whose hands we step on, so that they cannot even hold on to the fences that separate them from the world.

We know nothing or almost nothing about our earliest ancestors. But our presence here, agonizing and irresponsible, is the last refuge of human life, and it testifies that sometime, back when everything lay in the open, they managed to make out what we cannot understand today: that life was a collective matter, that air and water belonged to everyone and that it was necessary to gather together around the fire, get warm, and share food.

Perhaps it was then that the earth and the sky began to love them.

The Spanish language original version of this article can be viewed at the web site www.pelotadetrapo.org.ar.