Far-right gains could put Hungary reforms at risk

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

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

11 Years Later: NATO Powers Prepare Final Solution In Kosovo

Friday, 19 March 2010 12:57

Written by Rick Rozoff

March 17 marked the sixth anniversary of a concerted assault against Serbs and other ethnic minorities in Kosovo that resulted in 800 Serbian homes and thirty five Orthodox churches and monasteries being destroyed, 4,000 Serbs and Roma (Gypsies) forced to flee their homes, 900 hundred people injured and 19 killed.

The attacks followed the accidental drowning of three ethnic Albanian youth which local separatist politicians and media attributed to the actions of Serbs and used to incite an orgy of intolerance, ethnic hostility and violence.

They marked the worst, and deadliest, violence in the Balkans since NATO's 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the war in Macedonia two years later launched by an offshoot of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) operating out of NATO-occupied Kosovo. Clashes occurred between ethnic Albanians and Serbs and between both and NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) troops. The dead and wounded included members of all three groups.

Read More: http://australia.to/2010/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1604:11-years-later-nato-powers-prepare-final-solution-in-kosovo&catid=95:rick-rozoff&Itemid=127

What Americans Can Learn From Gypsy Culture

Wilderness House Literary Review announces a one hour lecture by noted Gypsy (Roma) scholar Sonia Meyer at 7:00 P. M. on October 14, 2009 at the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tickets are $5.00 at the door. Topic is "What Americans can learn from the Gypsies."

Littleton, Massachusetts (PRWEB) September 6, 2009 -- Wilderness House Literary Review is pleased to announce a one hour lecture by noted Gypsy (Roma) scholar Sonia Meyer at 7:00 P. M. on October 14, 2009 at the Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tickets are $5.00 at the door.

Sonia Meyer will speak about the Roma (Gypsy) culture and what we can learn from them in this high tech, money-worshipping society. She hopes the audience will look inside the Gypsies self-exiled world, and come to realize that their freedom is available to all of us.

Sonia Meyer was born in Cologne, Germany in 1938 and spent her formative years living in the woods among partisan and Gypsy fighters during WWII. She has been fascinated by Gypsies, or the Roma people ever since becoming a self-educated scholar of Roma (Gypsy) culture.

Meyer, who may indeed be part Gypsy herself has been intrigued by the freedom, the art, and the celebration of magic and mysticism of the Roma people. She encountered them throughout her travels in Europe, and struck up fascinating conversations with these enigmatic vagabonds. She lived much of her life like a Gypsy, moving from city to city across Europe, and eventually landing in the states. In Geneva she worked with Jewish refugees, she spent time with the Bedouins in the Negev desert, eventually moving to the States.

In the narrow and winding stacks of the Widener Library at Harvard she discovered a translation by Matteo Maximoff, Russian Gypsy, which concerned Russian nomadic Gypsies. She visited him, and traveled to Macedonia to visit the so-called "Queen of the Gypsies," and lived with a family in the Gypsy section of Skopje where the Gypsies were well off.

She is the author of a novel to be published in the Summer of 2010. "Dosha" is about a Gypsy girl. The novel spans her childhood spent with Russian partisans in Polish forests to her defection during Khrushchev's visit to Helsinki on June 6, 1957. "Dosha" will be published by Wilderness House Press (www.wildernesshousepress.com) and will be excerpted in the spring issue of Wilderness House Literary Review (www.whlreview.com ). For further information see www.soniameyer.com.

For further information contact Steve Glines, 978-800-1625 - Industrial Myth & Magic (www.industrialmyth.com ) is a public relations firm specializing in literary persona and events.
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Hungary: 4 Detained in Gypsy Killings

By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: August 21, 2009

The Hungarian police arrested four people early Friday in connection with a series of killings of Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies, that have shaken the Roma community and raised ethnic tensions across Hungary. The police said the suspects were arrested at a bar in Debrecen in eastern Hungary. A half-dozen Roma have been killed over the past year in nighttime attacks with shotguns, firebombs and other weapons at the victims’ homes, usually on the edges of Roma neighborhoods. In the most recent attack, a Roma woman was shot and killed this month and her 13-year-old daughter seriously wounded in the eastern village of Kisleta.

Madonna booed in Bucharest for defending Gypsies

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

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

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

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

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

Gypsy Child Thieves

This World: Gypsy Child Thieves
Wednesday 2nd September 7.00pm BBC2

Produced/Directed/Presented by Liviu Tipurita

From Madrid to Milan to London, European cities have experienced a surge of street crime since the accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union in 2007. Much of it – pick pocketing, theft from bags, stealing from cash machines – is carried out by Romani Gypsy children from Romania. This World investigates this disturbing phenomenon: the adults who force the children on to the streets to beg and steal and the increasing evidence of Gypsy organised crime, trafficking children around Europe.

Romanian film maker Liviu Tipurita, who has spent many years investigating child trafficking and exploitation and who has made several films about Romania’s gypsy community, filmed in Spain and in Italy, where Gypsy crime has hit the headlines and where the right-wing government has introduced draconian measures to target the Gypsies. With remarkable access to Gypsy camps, the film charts how child crime has become increasingly common within the community. And covert footage shows just how hard these child thieves work to earn their adult controllers many thousands of pounds.

In Madrid police say that 95% of the children under 14 who they pick up are Romanian Gypsies. Their crime of choice is robbing people as they withdraw money from cash machines. Liviu filmed covertly as children as young as ten, who appeared well trained in distraction techniques, fearlessly targeted people withdrawing money. It often took several bystanders to force them off.

In a squalid, rat infested camp outside Madrid, 13-year-old Daniela explains that how the police are powerless to stop them: “When you steal, you can make 300 in one go. It’s only the police that catch us, they take the money we have on us, they take us to the day centre, and the centre lets us go.” Girl thieves like Daniela can be sold into marriage for as much as 25,000 Euros. The value of the Gypsy child brides is directly dependent on how skilled they are at stealing.

In Milan, Italian police launched a major investigation following an explosion of pick pocketing and theft at the city’s central station. The operation, involving covert surveillance and phone tapping, revealed a sophisticated international organisation that shipped hundreds of thousands of euros stolen by children on the streets to criminal gangsters back in Romania. A police raid discovered 15 children locked in a shed, and resulted in the conviction of 25 adults for their enslavement and exploitation. However, This World discovered that some of the children taken into care during the operation have escaped and are once again stealing on the streets of Milan under the control of adults.

At the end of his journey, Liviu Tipurita travels to Romania. Here the majority of Roma Gypsies live in abject poverty. They have been the victims of racism for centuries and live outside mainstream society. Organised crime exploits the desperation and poverty that blights the community. However even a senior figure in the Gypsy underworld, interviewed for the programme, believes that the stealing has gone too far. Revealing the fabulous mansions and expensive cars that have been bought with the proceeds of crime abroad, Breliant believes that the current level of crime could lead to further problems for the Romani Gypsies: “Our country won’t understand us any longer, the Western countries will chase us away. And then I ask myself… where are we going to go? Where will we live?”

Roma not a 'dirty' word

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(MORE)

Sonia Meyer: A local writer who throws a light on the secretive Gypsy culture.

By Doug Holder
Off The Shelf

I admit it. I was among the ilk that bought into the tired stereotype of the Gypsies as jobless vagrants, with a lot of kids, living in a tent camp, with the requisite dancing and fortune teller. I never took the time to think of them as anything more than stick figures. Being a Jew I heard from my relatives about the atrocities my family and the greater Jewish people experienced under the Nazis. But the Gypsies also suffered greatly. Why wasn't this talked about in school and at home? I really needed a serious education. That's when I ran across Sonia Meyer. I interviewed her and she introduced to a world that I was woefully ignorant of. Meyer is a novelist, as well as a scholar of Gypsy culture, who has completed a novel about a Gypsy girl named: "Dosha."

The Gypsies have lived and criss-crossed Europe for 600 years. They were among the first European settlers to enter our own country. Yet most of us, know them only through prejudice.

Sonia Meyer was born in 1938 in Cologne, Germany into a multi-ethnic family, who was very opposed to the Nazi regime. When co-agitators started to be publicly hung on street-corners, Sonia's family left overnight and made for the German hinterlands and later the dense forests in Poland, where they survived in the company of partisans and some Gypsies the Germans had not managed to capture. Flushed out by the victorious Russian army, who often killed those who had escaped the German massacres, they returned across a devastated land and killer fields to a Cologne that was leveled to the ground. Again she came across and befriended a group of Gypsy children.

Like them she would ultimately leave the memories of war and its aftermath behind, by simply walking into the future. Helped by a wealthy aunt, her travels would take her across the world, through a variety of professions to finally settle in the United States, where she had a family and entered the most noble of Gypsy professions of all, the breeding and dealing of horses.

Having found peace and happiness after a tumultuous journey, she started to long for the one part missing in her life, Gypsies. She decided to look into the history of the people she had found comfort with during the tumultuous years of war and its horrible aftermath.

But some twenty plus years ago, there was close to none research material on the Gypsies available. At Harvard's Widener library, she discovered a translation of a novel by a Russian Gypsy, by the name of Matteo Maximoff. She contacted him and they became fast friends. She then immersed herself in the life of Gypsies, traveling to Macedonia, and Kosovo and Hungary pursuing her research. And now Meyer has completed a novel, tentatively titled" "Dosha", that tells the tale of a Gypsy girl Dosha. The novel is bookended by Nikita Khrushchev's state visit to Helsinki in 1957. The story is of, a Gypsy, and her hardscrabble childhood spent with Russian partisans in Polish forests, to her defection during Khrushchev's visit..... .

In her research, her travels, when she lived with them, followed them to some sacred Gypsy sites, Sonia was struck how familiar their way of thinking and living was to her. And thinking back at the nomadic life most of her mother's siblings, she finally asked her mother who was on her death bed, "That grandfather of mine, the dark one, the one who worked in the circus with horses, the one who kept leaving home all the time, was he...a Gypsy? Her mother replied:

"I was not born under a wagon...so I decided long ago to declare myself a Rhinelander...as you by now should know: reality is like a rubber band. You can stretch it anyway you desire." This always stayed with her.

Meyer, a self-taught scholar of Gypsy culture and history is concerned with a possibly precedent setting case in Florida. For the past 5 years Broward County has been trying to seize the property of the Christian Romany Church, whose 300 Roma members are considered ethnic Gypsies. The County feels it has the right of Eminent Domain, overriding the Religious Freedom Law. Has the disregard for the human rights and equality followed them all the way to this country?

There is a last minute twist, in this long-drawn out fight of the Gypsies for what they consider rightfully theirs. The County did win the suit, and settled with the Roma church for a certain amount of money,not enough however to buy a new church. The Gypsies were given six months to vacate the church. Those six month were expiring at the end of August. Suddenly, several county officials are questioning the decision of depriving the Gypsies of their church. "That's just it," Sonia informed me with great excitement. "That's why I chose this country to live in. No matter how tough things get, here there is always hope."

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.

Schools exclude pupils less often

The number of exclusions from England's schools went down last year, latest figures show.

There were 8,130 permanent exclusions from primary, secondary and special schools in 2007-08, 6.4% less than the year before.

There were 383,830 fixed period exclusions, down 9.8%. Boys featured in three times as many cases as girls.

The number of appeals lodged by parents dropped a quarter to 780. Of these 26% succeeded, up 1.3 percentage points.

Appeal panels ordered children to be reinstated in their school in just over a third of the successful cases (35%), down five percentage points on the previous year.

Pupils from black Caribbean backgrounds were three times as likely as all children to be permanently excluded and twice as likely to be suspended (given a fixed period exclusion).

The exclusion rate was highest for Gypsy/Roma children, though they accounted for fewer than 2,000 cases in total nationally.

'Myth'

Shadow Schools Minister Nick Gibb said: "There is a serious problem with discipline and poor behaviour in English schools.

"The fact that nearly 500 children a day return to school after assaulting an adult or a classmate shows that teachers do not have sufficient powers to keep control."

The statistics show there were 71,330 fixed period exclusions for assaulting another pupil and 17,870 for attacking an adult - though both sets of figures were lower than last year.

But Children's Minister Dawn Primarolo said: "It is time to put to bed the myth that behaviour is deteriorating with teachers powerless to act.

"The truth is that we have given teachers the powers they asked for to tackle bad discipline and today's figures, as well as the trend over the last several years, show that the action we have taken is working in improving discipline in schools."

'Fiddling'

She said programmes such as Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (Seal), which ensures that young people understand the consequences of their actions and are taught how to respond to situations responsibly, had had a positive impact on discipline.

"But we can always do more and that is why we have strengthened home-school agreements to make sure the worst behaved children have clear expectations of behaviour and schools can force parents to take action if they do not live up to these expectations."

Liberal Democrat spokesman David Laws said: "Although permanent exclusions are down, there is a strong suspicion that the government is fiddling the figures by not declaring the transfer from one school to another of children who have effectively been excluded.

"Yet again, we can see a divide between rich and poor in our education system, with those children entitled to free school meals being far more likely to be excluded."

Poverty

It was this aspect that most concerned a charity that works with excluded youngsters, UK Youth.

Children entitled to free school meals were three times as likely as the average to be excluded, and secondary schools in the most deprived areas had more exclusions than those in the least deprived areas, it noted.

UK Youth chief executive John Bateman said: "Young people who are at risk of exclusion need access to a personalised curriculum that motivates them together with support from teachers, youth workers and mentors who can provide appropriate support and guidance."

He said they responded well to being given access to vocational subjects which allowed them to gain skills and qualifications and to have a clear sense of how to manage their lives when they left school.

Wild East Capitalism and the Gypsy Exodus

July 29, 2009
Brian Kenety

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

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

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

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

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

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

The new ghettos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gypsy Summer

By Michael Johnson on 7.28.09 @ 6:08AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roma convene in Prague to pray for future leader

By Katerina Zachovalova Jul 27, 2009, 13:42 GMT

Prague - From all over Europe, members of a Romanian Roma clan have descended on Prague in recent days to pray for the recovery of one of their most treasured sons, Ion Miclescu, injured last week in a swimming accident.

The young man, pegged to rule his hometown's Roma one day and considered a kind of prince, has been lying in a Prague hospital in a coma since nearly drowning Wednesday in a lake on the city's outskirts.

The clan's vigil is testing the tolerance of Czech society and has exposed racism that is often hidden from the public eye.

Miclescu, who turned 17 two weeks ago, had gone for a swim on Wednesday to refresh himself as the semi-nomadic family from southern Romania paused in the Czech Republic during a journey through Europe, relatives said.

However, he slipped underwater and remained submerged for about 10 minutes before an athletic stranger managed to fish him out, they said. It took another 40 minutes for rescuers to restart Miclescu's heart. The good samaritan remains unidentified, police said.

Once alerted of Milescu's accident, his clan - Miclescu's father has seven brothers - descended upon the Czech capital in their battered BMWs from sites across the continent, including the Netherlands, Germany and Poland. They pitched camp in a park in front of Vinohrady Hospital.

'It is normal for us to come together. We wait, we pray,' said Vitomireanu Bobi-Corneliu, 29, Ion's distant cousin, who goes by Bobi and picked up English from movies.

Miclescu, the youngest son of the clan's elder, is something of a prince, Bobi explained. He has been on track to become one of a half- dozen elders of 'all Gypsies' in Ramnicu Valcea, the family's hometown in Romania, because he is 'very smart.'

At an estimated 10 million, the Roma, also known as Gypsies, are Europe's largest minority. They are also seen as the most marginalized group on the continent. Most live in exclusion, undereducated and impoverished. There are an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 Roma in the Czech Republic.

Recent economic woes have heightened racial tensions in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in Europe.

In the past few months, neo-Nazis have marched through Roma ghettos, and several houses belonging to Roma have been fire-bombed. Earlier in July, Canada re-introduced visas for Czechs to stop the country's Roma from seeking asylum there.

In opinion polls, Czechs consistently rank the Roma as the least- liked national minority. A March survey by the CVVM polling institute found that Roma are disliked by 77 per cent of respondents, followed by Ukrainians, who are disliked by 56 per cent of respondents.

Miclescu's immediate family began setting up camp near the hospital on Wednesday. Other clan members arrived later in the week and over the weekend. The impromptu gathering soon triggered a wave of residents' complaints, officials said.

A hospital security guard observed disapprovingly that Miclescu's relatives did not pay for parking. 'Police ignore it, but I would not get away with it,' she griped.

Partly to prevent potential neo-Nazi attacks, the municipal authorities moved the group from the hospital to a nearby campground on Friday, where they have been loosely separated from other visitors. The family gathering included over 100 people by Monday.

During the weekend, men were passing time quietly talking, sipping beer and smoking on benches under a willow tree, while women in long colourful skirts adorned with spangles cooked meat-and-potato stew on propane burners.

'They have their own space because they exceed our capacities,' the campsite's operator, Zita Strnadova said. But she added that some vacationers fled when Miclescu's family arrived.

Some Czech news websites temporarily shut down discussion about the family's vigil, as they were overflowing with racist comments.

One anonymous reader commented on the site of iDNES.cz on Monday: 'Czechs have no money for vacations because of the crisis and they should support the gypsy trash?' Another reader wrote: 'Send them back where they came from. As if we did not have enough of them.'

The comments surprised a local Roma who coaches boxing.

'I was astonished,' said Stefan Licartovsky, who is collecting money for the clan. 'There were people who wrote that a dead gypsy is a good gypsy. They should be jailed.'

For now, donations are covering the campground fees, but the family may be forced to move again soon.

Despite the odds, clan members are ready to stay nearby as long as Ion needs them, said his oldest brother, Laurentiu, 25.

Miclescu breathes only thanks to a respirator and has been on dialysis since Saturday, when his kidneys failed, a hospital spokeswoman said.

'I wait for a positive result. It is up to God,' Laurentiu said, glancing up to the sky.

Gypsy artists are coming to town

Published Date: 29 May 2009

TOP gypsy artists are coming to Doncaster to mark the second national Gypsy Roma Traveller History month.

The Baro Ziro Big Time Festival will be running for a week in June as part of the Hothouse arts programme, and will taken place at three venues across the borough - including a traditional circus tent in Chequer Road's Arts Park.

The main marquee line-up will feature entertainment from world music chart-toppers, KAL, Czech Eurovision entry Gypsy CZ and the rarely seen traveller music legend Ambrose Coop and Family.

There will be tales of life on the road with the UK's leading traveller storyteller, Richard O'Neill, an evening of performance, tunes and stories directed by the internationally acclaimed theatre director Alan Lyddiard, and a special screening of Shane Meadows' iconic film King of the Gypsies.
The gallery at The Point, on South Parade, will play host to the creation of an installation by renowned British traveller artists Delaine and Damian Le Bas, and British Traveller photographer Patricia Knight will bring her exhibition to Cusworth Hall.

Baro Ziro runs from Saturday June 13 to Saturday June 20. Tickets are available from the Doncaster Civic Theatre box office on 01302 342349

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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Italy: Mayor 'pays' Roma-Gypsies to leave the city

Pisa, 21 May (AKI) - The mayor of the central Italian city of Pisa, Marco Filippeschi said the city was paying Roma-Gypsies who lived on the outskirts of the city to leave. "We send them back to their home in Romania," said Filippeschi, quoted by Italian daily 'Il Giornale'.

Filippeschi, from the centre-left Democratic Party, said he decided to demolish the shanty towns along the Aurelia and behind the hospital of Cisanello.

"The initiative has been coming for a long time. It involves 42 Roma-Gypsies from Romania, European Union citizens, who have voluntarily chosen to take part," said Filippeschi.

"As a grant to the families, the initiative cost 21,500 euros (or 511,90 per person), or a total of 30,000 including the bus trip escorted by the Red Cross. We cannot say that this is an exhorbitant price."

The group of Roma-Gypsies were taken to the Romanian city of Craiova, located in southwest Romania.

Filippeschi, when asked whether he was a member of the Northern League party known for its anti-immigrant and anti-Gypsy stance, insisted he was a member of the Democratic Party and this was not a deportation.

"By no means. I am a member of the PD. This was not a deportation, you know?. Everything was done respecting the law, informing the prefecture, police headquarters and the relevant foreign ministries. It is called 'voluntary repatriation' anyway."

The mayor said that the area of Pisa hosts around 1,000 Roma-Gypsies, half of whom live in villages where they pay rent or expenses, and the other half who live as squatters in makeshift huts.

"This winter there was a major flood in one of the camps and now the fire season is about to begin. Many of the illegal immigrants are targeted by the police for crimes such as thefts and receiving stolen goods," said Filippeschi.

Funds for the repatriation were taken from a European fund for immigration set aside for the region of Tuscany.

Under the agreement with the Roma-Gypsies the administration pays for a 'soft' return home, and in return, they commit not to come back to Italy for at least a year.

According to Filippeschi, it would be more costly for the Roma-Gypsies to return because their shacks have already been demolished and the areas already reclaimed.

There are 70,000 Roma-Gypsies in the country who are Italian citizens. Many others come from European Union countries such as Romania and Slovakia while others came from the Balkans.

Romanians are currently the largest immigrant group, and many Roma Gypsies have Romanian nationality.

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.

U.S. FBI helps Hungary on Gypsy killings

BUDAPEST, Hungary, May 4 (UPI) -- U.S. FBI agents are helping Hungarian police investigate a recent series of killings involving Gypsies.

The head of Hungary's police Jozsef Bencze said FBI agents analyze evidence they receive from Hungarian police officers and help produce psychological profiles of killers, the Hungarian news agency MTI said Monday.

About 100 Hungarian police officers work on some 18 cases which are linked with the killings of Gypsies in northeastern Hungary, Bencze said.

The Romany community has about 600,000 members and is the largest ethnic minority in Hungary.

Last week, Bencze said he suspects the killings could be blamed on the same group of extremists.

Two Gypsies were killed in the town of Nagycsecs in November. A Gypsy father and his 5-year-old son were killed in Tatarszentgyorgy in February and a 54-year-old Gypsy man was shot dead in Tiszalok April 22.

A recent public opinion survey found 82 percent of Hungarians hold negative feelings toward members of the Romany minority, MTI said. The survey was carried out among 2,500 adult Hungarians from March 23 to April 7, MTI said.

Gypsy families in Kosovo on toxic land

NORTH MITROVICA, Kosovo No one seems to care about the gypsies.

Displaced by conflict and stranded by bureaucratic inertia, dozens of gypsy families remain on toxic land 10 years after they were relocated there by the United Nations after the Kosovo war.

Lead blackens the children's teeth, blanks out memories and stunts growth. Other symptoms of lead poisoning include aggressive behavior, nervousness, dizziness, vomiting and high fever. The children swing between bursts of nervous hyperactivity and fainting spells. Some have epileptic fits.

The two resettlement camps — the Osterrode and Chesmin Lug — were established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1999 for gypsies, or Roma, as they are more commonly known in Europe. A traditionally nomadic people, the Roma share a common heritage that sets them apart as an ethnic group, with their largest populations in Central and Eastern Europe.

(MORE)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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ASYLUM IN CANADA IS NECESSARY UNTIL THE EU CAN GUARANTEE SAFETY

April 25, 2008

Roma Community Centre - Toronto

ASYLUM IN CANADA IS NECESSARY UNTIL THE EU CAN GUARANTEE SAFETY

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

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

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

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

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

Romania: Gypsies Celebrate Roma Day, Yet Fear Reigns

Written by Chuck Todaro
Thursday, 30 April 2009

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

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

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

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

(MORE)

Czech Gypsies seek pope's assistance

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hungary suspects Gypsy assaults organized

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

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

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

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

Jewish groups should lead condemnation of attacks on Gypsies in Europe

April 27, 2009

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

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

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

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

Posted by Philip Weiss at 03:32 PM

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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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.

PRINCES AMONGST MEN: THE GYPSY FILM FESTIVAL!

FEATURE FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES
ALONGSIDE A PHOTO EXHIBITION, LIVE MUSIC & DJS OVER TWO WEEK-ENDS!

www.myspace.com/princesamongstmen2007

April 24-25-26 @ The Ritzy, Brixton

May 1-2-3 @ The Picture House, Greenwich

This festival was conceived by Garth Cartwright after his book, Princes Amongst Men: Journeys With Gypsy Musicians (Serpents Tail) was published in 2005 and readers’ began enquiring as to how they could get to see the various feature films and documentaries he described. Since then lost classic feature films, brand new feature films and many documentaries have been screened. Directors, cinephiles and Roma rights activists have participated and the Ritzy’s upstairs bar has been transformed into a Gypsy-flavoured party across the weekend.

For 2009 the Festival continues with a rich offering of past classics and brilliant new material. The Ritzy also hosts FREE live music on Saturday and Sunday night in the upstairs bar and a PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION of an Albanian Roma community by Australian photojournalist Rob Hackman.

=======================================================
THE RITZY BRIXTON Friday 24th, Saturday 25th, Sunday 26th APRIL
=======================================================

FRIDAY 9pm: LATCHO DROM (film)
Directed by Tony Gatlif, this beautiful 1993 feature follows the musical migration of the Romany people from Rajasthan to Andalucia. Celebrated as a classic of world cinema, Latcho Drom is a haunting, visionary film.

+ post-screening Princes Amongst Men DJ event @ Ritzy upstairs Bar

SATURDAY afternoon 4.10pm: GYPSY MUSIC EXTRAVAGANZA (vintage live footage)
Vintage TV (Esma Redzepova, Gabby Lunca) live performances (Fanfare Ciocarlia), Guca festival footage and Bulgaria's Azis. Ranges from the ‘60s to ‘00s: a variety of short documentaries including 1960s footage of Esma Redzepova, 1970s Romanian TV footage of Bygone Age stars, contemporary footage from Serbia’s Guca festival, Bulgaria’s gay Gypsy pop-folk icon Azis and other footage; most never before screened in the UK before.

SATURDAY evening 6.45pm: PRETTY DYANA: A GYPSY RECYCLING SAGA & CYMBALOM LEGACY (documentaries)

Roma documentaries Pretty Dyana: A Gypsy Recycling Saga (Serbia) & Cymbalom Legacy (Holland-Hungary 45 mins) are acclaimed, brilliant award winning documentaries! Pretty Dyana finds director Boris Mitic investigating how Roma families that fled ethnic cleansing in Kosovo have built Mad Max-like vehicles from old Yugoslav Dyana cars and employ them to recycle Belgrade’s trash. It is both hilarious and life-affirming – a Balkan Slumdog! Cymbalom Legacy focuses on virtuoso Hungarian cymbalom player Miklos Lukacs. Beautifully shot and recorded by director Mano Camon, Cymbalom Legacy offers up both a history of the cymbalom and the life story of Lukacs, a young Roma musician dedicated to crossing boundaries.

+ post-screenings live music @ Ritzy upstairs Bar with French singer-guitarist FLORENCE JOELLE, accompanied by accordionist-keyboard LUCIE REJCHRTOVA, performing a blend of jazz, blues and Romany songs (Princes Amongst Men DJ support).

SUNDAY afternoon 4.30pm: ROMA HUMAN RIGHTS EVENT (documentaries)
A variety of short documentaries from Turkey, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and the UK celebrating ROMA HUMAN RIGHTS.

**** British Gypsy activist and film maker Jake Bowers will present several shorts he has directed on the UK Gypsy-Traveller community*****

SUNDAY evening 7.00pm: I EVEN MET HAPPY GYPSIES + CHILDREN OF THE BRASS BAND (film)

A very rare screening of the classic 1960s Yugoslav film I EVEN MET HAPPY GYPSIES. This brilliant, disturbing feature is rated as one of the great European films of the 1960s, helped launch Yugoslavia's "black cinema" movement and inspired Kusturica’s Gypsy epics. Supported by THE CHILDREN OF THE BRASS BAND VILLAGE, a witty and engaging 15-minute documentary that shows how ancient musical traditions continue to exist in southern Serbia.

+ post-film screenings live music @ Ritzy upstairs Bar with klezmer duo THE MATZOH BOYS (PAM DJ support).

RITZY PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION

A photographic exhibition of an Albanian Roma community by Australian photojournalist Rob Hackman will hang in the Ritzy's downstairs bar across April.

Hackman writes, “After emerging from 50 years of isolated communist rule the people of Albania were encouraged to invest their savings and houses in a huge pyramid scheme. An estimated $2 billion was lost when these government endorsed schemes collapsed in 1997. Today many in Albaniastruggle to rebuild their lives.

This collection of images depict the lives of a small group of Roma living in the wake of this huge financial crash.” All prints will be for sale with profit going back to this Roma community.

============================================================================
THE PICTURE HOUSE GREENWICH Friday 1st, Saturday 2nd, Sunday 3rd MAY
============================================================================
FRIDAY 6.45pm: LATCHO DROM (film)
Directed by Tony Gatlif, this beautiful 1993 feature follows the musical migration of the Romany people from Rajasthan to Andalucia. Celebrated as a classic of world cinema, Latcho Drom is a haunting, visionary film.

SATURDAY evening 6.45pm: PRETTY DYANA: A GYPSY RECYCLING SAGA & CYMBALOM LEGACY (documentaries)

Roma documentaries Pretty Dyana: A Gypsy Recycling Saga (Serbia) & Cymbalom Legacy (Holland-Hungary 45 mins) are acclaimed, brilliant award winning documentaries! Pretty Dyana finds director Boris Mitic investigating how Roma families that fled ethnic cleansing in Kosovo have built Mad Max-like vehicles from old Yugoslav Dyana cars and employ them to recycle Belgrade’s trash. It is both hilarious and life-affirming – a Balkan Slumdog! Cymbalom Legacy focuses on virtuoso Hungarian cymbalom player Miklos Lukacs. Beautifully shot and recorded by director Mano Camon, Cymbalom Legacy offers up both a history of the cymbalom and the life story of Lukacs, a young Roma musician dedicated to crossing boundaries.

SUNDAY afternoon 4pm: ROMA HUMAN RIGHTS EVENT (documentaries)
A variety of short documentaries from Turkey, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and the UK celebrating ROMA HUMAN RIGHTS.

==============================================================

THE RITZY, BRIXTON Box Office: 08707 550
Coldharbour Lane, London, SW2 1JG
Nearest tube: Brixton (Victoria Line), 3 minutes walk
www.picturehouses.co.uk/site/cinemas/ritzy/local.htm

GREENWICH PICTURE HOUSE Box Office: 08707 55 00 65
180 Greenwich High Road , Greenwich, London, SE10 8NN
British Rail is five minutes walk
www.picturehouses.co.uk/site/cinemas/Greenwich/local.html

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.

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.

Roma (Gypsy) Lecture

Apr 1, 2009, 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM

Location: Taylor Auditorium - Marsh Hall

This lecture will highlight various types of art (painting & music) of the Roma (Gypsies) in Europe.

The first half of this Lecture/Demonstration, Lorely French will give a brief overview of the Roma (Gypsies) in Central Europe and a brief introduction to Ceija Stojka's life and artworks that are being exhibited in the Cawein Gallery. Mark Ferguson, along with Stephanie Sánchez & Paul Brady, will talk briefly about the history of Gypsies in Spain and the music, flamenco, for which the Calé (Spanish Gypsies) are renowned. The LecDem on will take place on Wednesday, April 1st from 7pm to 8:30pm in Taylor Auditorium in Marsh Hall.

Posted by Mark Ferguson (mferguson@pacificu.edu) on Mar 24, 2009 at 10:44 AM

Balkan Beat Box is on top of the world

By Siddhartha Mitter
Globe Correspondent / March 27, 2009

The band's name is Balkan Beat Box. Its core membership is three Israelis who found their voice in New York subcultures and whose sound encompasses Arabic rap, Moroccan gnawa, mariachi, and dub in an electronically infused cocktail. And when the band hits the Paradise Wednesday, it'll be fresh from Mexico City, where it has a huge outdoor gig this weekend in the central plaza, the Zocalo, sharing a bill with Asian Dub Foundation, the London Indo-punk massive.

Orthodox, these guys are not. Not in their Jewishness, squarely anchored at the secular, pluralistic end of the spectrum, and even less so in their musical sensibility. But don't confuse Balkan Beat Box with one of those goofy world-fusion jam bands that peddle low-impact exotica to undiscerning ears. It may be a party band - its live shows are famously raucous - but its members have the spirit of researchers and activists.

The band's recent journeys have taken it to places like Tel Aviv, Mexico City, and Belgrade, cofounder Ori Kaplan says, recording with local musicians for its third album, due out later this year. In Serbia, Kaplan says, band members shared techniques and compositions with some of the country's Roma, or Gypsy, village bands.

"We were writing music for them and teaching them our compositions," Kaplan says. "It wasn't just taking a Gypsy brass band and adding an electronic beat. We had a real musical exchange with Gypsy culture."

Kaplan, who plays saxophone and woodwinds, is speaking on the phone from Vienna, where he is temporarily based while his fiancée, who is Bosnian, is there on a work assignment. The Austrian capital is more vibrant than its stodgy reputation suggests, he says: "Every week you find a band that's like your dream band." And he's enjoying easy access to Eastern Europe.

These items are related. Although his band's music extends far beyond the Balkan reference in its name, the intense mixing of European, Jewish, Muslim, and Roma cultures that has taken place in the region for centuries is probably the band's core feedstock. And these days in Europe, that mixing is more vibrant than ever, Kaplan says.

"There's a real cultural exchange," he says, pointing to the short driving distances among central European capitals. "In New York, it's more distance and nostalgia; people are re-creating themselves. Here, they bring it with them."

That said, it was New York's "urban urgency," as Kaplan calls it, that gave birth to Balkan Beat Box and fostered its early audience around vigorous club performances and two albums, one eponymous in 2005, and the other, "Nu-Med" (as in the new Mediterranean), in 2007.

"They're a quintessential New York band," says Bill Bragin, director of public programming at Lincoln Center, who has watched the group emerge on the scene. "They're also a band of immigrants; each one is at a minimum bicultural."

Before forming Balkan Beat Box, Kaplan and drummer and electronics guru Tamir Muskat worked with pioneering neo-Gypsy performance ensemble Gogol Bordello in New York. The third core member, vocalist and all-around agitator Tomer Yosef, divides his time between New York and Tel Aviv.

"It was one of those eye-opening experiences being right in the middle of a golden era in New York," Kaplan says of the Gogol phase - referring to the rise of Eastern European sounds in hip circles, a trend partly fueled by the rise of a progressive Jewish aesthetic curious to hear these sounds in new settings.

"It's this somewhat new tendency in Jewish music that points to the idea of a Jewish identity, not in isolation, but in conversation with other traditions," Bragin says.

While New York is still their center of gravity, the band's members are now happily unmoored from its cultural compartments. Musically, they are introducing still more ingredients to the mix - particularly from Latin America, Kaplan says, with rhythms like Brazilian batucada on the upcoming record.

They're achieving more lyrical sophistication as well, Kaplan says, loosening the reliance on groove and putting more into the structure and emotional content of songs. "We dig deeper on this album," he says.

Most of all, they're hyper-conscious of the journey that animates not just their geographical movements but also their ideas.

"We don't want to be pigeonholed, and I feel like we have avoided that," Kaplan says. "We are lucky to have an audience that is loyal that way. We're kind of like a workshop, an art house."

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

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.

Times change even at the Gypsy bride market

Europe Features
By Elena Lalova Mar 12, 2009, 2:07 GMT

Mogila, Bulgaria - When a Roma from a southern Bulgarian clan is looking for a bride, he goes to the traditional gathering which his folk stage in Stara Zagora each year in late winter or early spring - though as of recently some brides want to dance more than to marry.

Gypsy families from the clan have for centuries presented their daughters for marriage at the so-called bride market in Mogila, a village 220 kilometres south-east of Sofia, on the first Saturday after Easter fasting begins.

Some 2,000 from far and near - from Bulgaria's second-largest city Plovidiv, from Yambol and Sliven - made the pilgrimage again last Saturday to eye would-be-brides in seductive dresses and plastic flowers in their hair.

'I came with my daughter, my friends with their son. They are to meet and fall in love,' Kalina, arriving from Kapitan Andreevo on the Turkish border, says without any beating around the bush.

A pretty bride does not come cheap - a family of a good-looking young woman would not give her away for marriage without compensation running into the 'thousands of euros,' a woman getting off a train at the nearby station says knowingly.

The festival, on a field in Mogila next to the cattle-and-poultry market, starts with an explosion of Oriental music streaming from speakers mounted on a centrally-parked car.

A 17-year-old girl in a bright-green dress and a 21-year-old trader from Haskovo jump on the roof of their Lada and start dancing, celebrating and announcing that they married 10 days before. As on cue, others send their daughters to dance on cars.

Soon many 17- and 18-year old girls are showing off their belly- dancing skills as entire families, many with small children in tow, mill about.

But not all dancers - as two sisters from Plovdiv, dressed in dark green and maroon gowns and with heavy golden necklaces - are in Mogila to find a husband. One of them, 18-year-old Darinka, says she is 'still too young.'

'Times have changed,' Kalina laments. Around 50, with a face deeply furrowed by hard life, she wears a long braid and a colourful headscarf - the traditional signs of a married woman.

When she was introduced to her husband at the same place many years ago, she was neither asked nor offered a chance to give an opinion about her own maturity for marriage.

The Roma who gathered in Mogila belong to one of the largest Christian-Orthodox clans, traditionally working as pewter craftsmen throughout southern Bulgaria.

'Before, the girls in our clan were wed at 15. Our young would meet here, because they were not going out to cafes and clubs,' says Mariyka, 76.

'We want to keep the tradition, despite all this novelty,' she says, cursing and pointing to a flashy mobile phone hanging around the neck of a young man and rows of gleaming, expensive cars lining the field.