Tagged with Roma

Anti-Roma attacks show need to resist rise of the far-right throughout European Union

Romani_flagLast Monday saw the wonderful sight of Roma flags raised outside Downing Street, representing a small proportion of the 12 million Roma people who live within the European Union. The Roma suffer huge discrimination and abuse on differing levels in every country across Europe.

They were the first victims of the nazis, who shipped them off to concentration camps where they were subsequently joined by millions of others – Jews, communists, intellectuals, most of whom finally met their end in the gas chambers. Continue reading →

David Blunkett fuels anti-Roma racism

Romani_flagThe Romani people have uniquely suffered from uninterrupted systematic racism across Europe throughout the last century in spite of the minority rights established in international law by the Treaty of Versailles. In the first decades it ranged from oppressive segregation to genocide. In the Soviet bloc, material standards of living improved somewhat but at the cost of forced assimilation and both relative deprivation and discrimination persisted,. Then in the transition to capitalism, no-one suffered worse, and welfare dependency brought new levels of racism and harrassment.

Into this mix, Labour’s David Blunkett throws his pennyworth: Roma must “change their culture” and send their children to school, stop dumping rubbish and loitering in the streets in order to soothe tensions which could cause new urban riots. Unsurprisingly, Nigel Farage is quick to offer his support: Continue reading →

Europe’s shame: ethnic cleansing ignored

Across Europe, eight million Romani citizens of the EU are subject to systematic segregation and persecution that is similar to the treatment of Jews in the first months of Nazi rule. It is to Europe’s shame that it is largely ignored by western media and governments alike — the interest they did show in the run up to the enlargement of the EU into east and central Europe seems to have been motivated only by the desire to prevent Romani migration to seek asylum in the West. Continue reading →