http://rt.com/news/roma-gypsies-eu-crime/
EU turns its back on gypsies, pushing them to crime for survival
Published:
18 November, 2010, 09:23
A crisis over the plight of Roma gypsies is spreading across the European Union, resulting in growing dissatisfaction from all sides.
Some EU countries blame the Roma for rising crime and are trying to tackle the problem by deporting them back to where they came from, making it worse.
The mayor of one Bulgarian town had to tear down a block of flats, turned into a slum by Roma residents. Infested with rats, cockroaches and fleas, it was called “a health hazard” by authorities.
It is possible that solutions like these could become common across Europe in the future.
That people will be left on the streets does not worry Bulgarian authorities. Some gypsies had to move to a wasteland, where there is no shelter, healthcare, or education for the children. With winter approaching, they will be sleeping in the cold.
Not surprisingly, the Roma are far from satisfied with their living conditions, and their anger is turning into accusations of discrimination. They wonder why the EU treats its citizens that way.
Bulgaria is left to solve the gypsy problem on its own, believes Tsvetelin Kanchev, president of the Euroroma party.
“
EU politicians bury their heads in the sand,” he stated.
France has sent tens of thousands of Roma back to Bulgaria. Sweden, Italy, Denmark and Germany had similar policies. The EU’s Justice Commissioner said it reminded her of World War II.
However, campaigners warn that most Roma sent back by France and other states cannot integrate, as there are not enough jobs for them in Bulgaria.
As Roma gypsies are left with nothing but despair, they turn to crime as a way to feed their families. Those that can, go straight back to richer EU states. Member countries report the number of Roma offences is shooting up.
This lawlessness is in turn pushing more and more people into angry, anti-gypsy groups. They claim that the Roma steal even train tracks, risking the lives of many people.
Europe’s 10 million Roma are the elephant in the corner. The EU community usually freezes them out, in all ways but one. With education opportunities limited, music remains one of their few paths to success.
However, anti-gypsy groups claim that ethnic conflicts will surge until the EU learns to live and work with Roma, not just enjoy their music in the nightclubs.
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http://rt.com/news/a-one-way-ticket-for-italy-s-gypsies/
A one-way ticket for Italy’s gypsies
Published:
11 June, 2009, 17:07
The central Italian city of Pisa has found a new way to help curb Italy’s much-disputed “Roma-gypsy problem” – by shipping them all the way back to Romania if they agree to do so.
This latest initiative, called “voluntary repatriation” by local authorities, is completely legal, says Pisa mayor, Marco Filippeschi.
Nomadic gypsies living in shantytowns on the outskirts of Pisa are being offered €500 and a bus ticket back to Romania, as long as they accept the terms of the deal: to stay out of Italy for at least one year.
The new policy launched by the city council of Pisa, home of Italy’s world famous leaning tower, has kicked up a storm of controversy among both local welfare and Roma advocacy groups, though it does not seem to break any constitutional laws. Filippeschi says that, thus far, 42 Roma gypsies of Romanian origin and with European citizenship have already agreed to the deal and have been sent back to the southwestern Romanian city of Craiova. During their one-way trip, they were escorted by the Red Cross and given approximately €512 each – enough cash to get them back on their feet in their new country.
“The initiative has been coming for a long time,” says Filippeschi,
“Everything was done respecting the law, informing the prefecture, police headquarters and the relevant foreign ministries. It is called ‘voluntary repatriation’.” Following accusations of deportation and racism, Filippeschi, who is from Italy’s largest centre-left party the Democratic Party, steadfastly denied that the initiative was a deportation, but instead a “soft” return to home.
The gypsies would not have any home in Pisa to return to anyway, says Filippeschi, because some of Pisa’s gypsy camps have already been demolished by the city administration. According to local authorities, there are about 1,000 Roma-gypsies in Pisa, half of which reside in shantytowns outside the city limits.
City officials want to make the same offer to other Roma-gypsies and eventually demolish all of the illegal encampments in the city because, as Filippeschi states, they pose both security and health risks to inhabitants.
However, many of the Roma-gypsies living in these camps now consider Italy their home and they don’t want to leave. A young, newly-married factory worker, Laurentiu, said the initiative is ineffective and can only work in the short-term:
“That 500 euro will only help you squat for a few days. Life in Romania is expensive. Whoever has accepted the deal and left Pisa will be back in a few months, I can swear on it.”
Instead of being given money to move back to Romania, the Roma in Pisa would like the city to help them find work and homes to rent. “The city is willing to help us move back to Romania, but why not help us to live better here? When we go to rental agencies they turn us away, telling us that no one wants to rent their property to gypsies,” Laurentiu explained.
Earlier actions
In May 2008, the Italian government launched a controversial profiling campaign of Roma-gypsy communities and shantytowns present in Italy. More recently, Italian officials released the data that was collected during the profiling scheme. According to the police checks carried out over a period of 12 months, authorities recorded a total of 12,346 inhabitants, who live in the 167 shantytowns throughout Italy (124 are unauthorized and 43 are authorized), among which 5,436 are minors. Now authorities say they will construct legal, hygienic and safe camps, as well as enroll the children in state schools.
Pisa is not the first Italian city to consider repatriation as a possible solution to Italy’s years-long “gypsy problem”. In recent years, similar pilot projects have been launched in the Italian capital of Rome and in the northern Italian city of Pavia. However, there is no data to suggest that these initiatives were successful in helping reintegrate gypsies into Romanian society. “Without social services and reintegration policies in place in Romania to track their movements, how can we know what really happens to these ‘volunteer repatriates’?” said a social worker from Pisa.
The city administration is also trying to strike the same deal with members of the local Senegalese community. However, Mbaye Diop, president of the Senegalese association of Tuscany, says that to accept such a deal, there would have to be a network set up to ensure jobs and homes for those who decide to move back to their native land. “We don’t want a bonus to get us out of Italians’ way, we want a real project that ensures assisted and productive repatriation,” says Diop.
Brenda Dionisi for RT =0=
http://rt.com/news/hungarian-neo-nazi-lead-war-on-gypsies/
Hungarian Neo-Nazi lead war on gypsies
Published:
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.
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http://rt.com/news/prime-time/gypsies-face-new-battles-in-russia/
Gypsies face new battles in Russia
Published:
27 October, 2008, 06:34
A recent report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance shows Russian attitudes to Roma gypsies have become more hostile in recent years. Many Russians perceive them as criminals and drug dealers, but there are some who are interested in
The Tomovich family have lived in their house in north-western Russia for 20 years, but they don't know how much longer they'll be staying. It might be made of bricks and mortar, but on the city map it doesn't exist. By Russian law it could be demolished at anytime.
Around 2,000 other people in the same gypsy community in the town of Chudovo are in the same boat.
“They tore down eight houses built by young people who’d separated from their parents, and the authorities say they'll be pulling down our houses as well,” says middle-aged Elizaveta Tomovich.
Gypsies came to the town of Chudovo in the 1980s. Soviet law prohibited them from roaming and local authorities allowed them to stay. At that time the land was not needed. Now a new construction development plan is being worked out for the town and the region.
There have been over a dozen similar cases throughout Russia, but the issue of land ownership is just one of the problems facing the country's gypsies. According to the latest census, there are 200,000 gypsies in the country, but there are estimates the number could be up to a million.
Twenty per cent go on to higher education, but the majority hardly make it through middle school, often because they do not speak Russian.
Many find themselves unemployed, especially as their traditional crafts like tinplating are no longer valued.
Ethnologist Nadezhda Demeter says that now gypsies are only perceived as drug sellers – nothing more.
“However, the percentage of those involved in criminal business is the same as with other nationalities,” she says.
“Russia used to be friendly to gypsies, and Russian literature and music were influenced by gypsy culture”.
Gypsies say their nation is alive as long as their songs are alive, but the lack of interest in gypsy folk music in modern Russia represents an additional challenge to the community.
The Buzylev family has been performing gypsy folk songs around the country since the 1940s. In Soviet times gypsy culture was embraced.
Mikhail Buzylev has launched a gypsy music project to help aspiring musicians get on stage. If people hear more gypsy songs and not only criminal reports, he says, attitudes will improve and young Roma perhaps will have a better chance of finding their place in society.
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http://rt.com/news/russias-roma-minority-struggle-for-tolerance/
Russia’s Roma minority struggle for tolerance
Published:
15 May, 2007, 08:55
A middle-class Roma community is a rare sight in Russia since most of the country’s 1.5 million Roma population live in extremes of either far below the poverty line or way above it.
In the Zubchaninovka settlement those Roma who have managed to amass wealth have built lavish buildings, and even shopping malls. Locals call them “Gypsy Palaces”.
But just 20 kilometres away is another extreme. In a camp gypsies live without electricity, running water, or gas. They don’t have a legal permit for the land they occupy, so they have trouble getting passports, and without them they can’t apply for jobs, because officially they don’t exist.
Children complete an average of only three years of schooling. Many never learn how to read or write.
Instead they spend their days begging and pickpocketing on the streets while their parents are often caught up in a life of crime.
Police raids are common. There have been several attempts to have the camp burned down. Local residents want them deported. But unlike other Russian minorities, the Roma don't have a state to return to. Their families have lived in Russia for centuries.
“Its like we are not humans, we lived here like this for seven years. No one pays attention to us, its like we don’t live in Russia, we are Russians, and we are raising our children to be Russians,” says one of the residents.
Roma people experience discrimination daily as they have been feared and mistrusted internationally for thousands of years. But the local government says the gypsies have to help themselves.
“The problem is that gypsies are poorly socialized, poorly integrated. It helps them preserve their culture but on the other hand it fuels negative perception from the society. Gypsies won’t listen to us, they would listen to their community leaders,” says Nadeshda Osipova, Samara government ethnicity specialist.
One man trying to make a difference is Victor Karbanenko. He heads the Roma Life organization that fights stereotyping and assists the poor to obtain documents.
“People don’t know what tolerance is, they know ‘blacks’ are enemies – gypsies mean drugs, Tajiks took over the markets. People are here to live and work. We are trying to change the stereotype by educating your youth and sharing our culture,” he says.
Roma remain one of Russia’s minorities that are simply overlooked and they feel they have to change their ways in order to change the established perception.
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