News

Czech Govt proposes granting Nicholas Winton the Order of the White Lion

Prague, 18.6.2014 20:36, (ROMEA) The Czech Government will propose to the President of the Republic that Nicholas Winton, the man who saved hundreds of Jewish children during WWII, be awarded the Order of the White Lion. Czech Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Bělobrádek (Christian Democrats -KDU-ČSL) informed journalists of the Government's decision yesterday.  full story

Commentary: Pope Francis is right - Roma are often modern-day slaves

Prague, 18.6.2014 19:45, (ROMEA) Recently several famous figures or those enjoying a certain authority have been standing up for Romani people and human rights in general. For example, Madeleine Albright has been following the lack of respect for Romani people in the Czech Republic and elsewhere and has expressed how disturbing she finds it.  full story

Khamoro World Roma Festival coming to Plzeň for the first time!

Plzeň, 18.6.2014 18:22, (ROMEA) This year the biggest Romani festival in the Czech Republic will bring sunshine not just to Prague, but to another city as well. For the first time ever, Khamoro will be hosted by the City of Plzeň from 26 – 28 June 2014.  full story

More and more Jewish people leaving Europe over security concerns

Prague, 18.6.2014 18:01, (ROMEA) Czech Radio reports that Delphine Ankaoua never thought she would feel like an uninvited guest in the luxury Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. Recently, however, her neighbors asked her to remove her mezuzah, a small box containing a Hebrew text from Holy Writ, from her doorpost, so she decided it was time she and her family moved to Israel.  full story

Czech art installation lampoons gambling as part of debate

Bystřice pod Hostýnem, 18.6.2014 17:05, (ROMEA) On Friday 13 June yet another gambling establishment was opened in the Czech town of Bystřice pod Hostýnem. Prizes on offer included "debt collections", "time behind bars" and "family breakup".  full story

Commentary: Czech Roma Strategy should support the Romani intelligentsia more

Prague, 18.6.2014 0:37, (ROMEA) Despite all of the concepts and efforts expended to date, the situation of Romani people in the Czech Republic is deteriorating. According to estimates, 80 000 - 100 000 Romani people (an estimated one-third of all Roma living in the Czech Republic) are grappling with burdensome problems of social exclusion.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani Expert Team warns co-financing requirements will keep NGOs from EU money

Prague, 17.6.2014 22:57, (ROMEA) A group of Romani experts is warning against the introduction of rules requiring organizers to raise part of the money needed to co-finance EU-funded projects themselves so the state will not have to provide it. The experts believe many organizations would never access EU financing and services for the needy would decline as a result.  full story

Norwegian populists want begging ban, opposition says the law targets Romani people

Oslo, 17.6.2014 22:10, (ROMEA) The Norwegian Government is planning to ban begging in public spaces. The proposal is part of an amendment to a law that Parliament began discussing yesterday.  full story

videoFrance: Young Roma man in coma after brutal lynching, President is outraged

Paris, 17.6.2014 21:47, (ROMEA) A Roma youth has been fighting for his life after being brutally lynched on Friday in a northern suburb of Paris. French President François Hollande has condemned the attack.  full story

Czech Museum of Romani Culture could lose 13 % of its budget

Brno/Prague, 17.6.2014 19:56, (ROMEA) Organizations funded by the Czech Culture Ministry, including some of the biggest national cultural institutions, will be required to reduce their expenditures next year by 10 %, according to the current proposed budget for 2015. These organizations, however, are already working with bare-bones budgets, and a 10 % reduction could mean significant restrictions to the work they are tasked with undertaking by law.  full story

video"I was born in your bed": Czech town presents Venice Biennale exhibition on Roma

Litomyšl, 16.6.2014 21:34, (ROMEA) An exhibition by multimedia artist Daniel Pešta, whose work was featured in the 2013 Venice Biennale, will now be exhibited comprehensively for the first time in the Czech Republic. The project, which is dominated by two large-format pieces of video art, is about the phenomenon of the Romani issue and individuals' attitudes toward it.  full story

Romania: Self-appointed king of the Roma announces virtual currency

Sibiu, Romania, 16.6.2014 16:59, (ROMEA) Dorin Cioaba, the self-appointed king of the Roma, announced last week in the Romanian city of Sibiu that Roma throughout 37 countries will soon have their own virtual currency, the "lov", which will be exchanged at a 1:1 rate with the euro. "We will begin with one lov valued at one euro and then we will see over time whether its value rises or falls," Cioaba said in an interview with the Agerpres press agency.  full story

Czech Republic: Police assistants were supposed to be hired, now they're unemployed

Sokolov, 16.6.2014 16:39, (ROMEA) Recently they were a model for the whole country. For two years the Western Bohemian town of Sokolov has been successfully using so-called crime prevention assistants to maintain order in troubled localities.  full story

European Grassroots Antiracist Movement holds Roma conference in Czech Republic

Prague, 16.6.2014 16:02, (ROMEA) From 12 - 15 June 2014 a preparatory meeting of activists with the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (EGAM) took place in Prague to work on the upcoming European Roma Pride celebrations. The meeting was organized by the Konexe association together with the EGAM network.  full story

From Siberia to Jerusalem: Israel's first Gypsy police officer

Jerusalem, 15.6.2014 22:21, (ROMEA) After spending her childhood in a Gypsy tribe on the frozen plains of Siberia, Tania Leontieff discovered that her mother had Jewish roots. She immigrated to Israel alone and converted, and is about to become a policewoman in Jerusalem.  full story

London: Roma Protest As Fascists Gather

London, 15.6.2014 22:16, (ROMEA) Even as Roma speakers addressed an audience at the United Against Fascism conference in London yesterday [14 June] on the rising frequency of attacks by neo-Nazi groups across Europe, members of the English Defence League were gathering in a menacing crowd outside TUC Congress Hall.  full story

UN Human Rights Commissioner disturbed by rising xenophobia in Europe

Geneva, 14.6.2014 20:36, (ROMEA) On 10 June the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed concern over rising racism and xenophobia in Europe. In her remarks opening the 26th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Pillay referenced the results of May's elections to the European Parliament, in which ultra-right parties scored gains.  full story

Patrolling the Streets with Hungary’s Roma Police

Budapest, 14.6.2014 13:18, (ROMEA) I was born into a poor family in central Hungary, in an environment with little opportunities. Thankfully I was supported by the Open Society Foundations with financial aid to complete my high school diploma. If I hadn’t managed this, I don’t know where I would be today. At the age of 21, I enrolled at a police academy in Budapest and immediately declared my Roma heritage.  full story

Romanian Court Judgment Affirms the Responsibility of Authorities to Provide Adequate Housing to Evicted Romani Community

Bucharest, 14.6.2014 8:55, (ROMEA) The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) welcomes the judgment of the Constanţa Court of Appeal in southern Romania which found that the Tulcea municipality is liable for inadequate housing conditions it had provided to a previously evicted Romani community. The court awarded financial compensation to the plaintiffs for the moral damage they suffered. The ERRC supported the evicted Romani community in taking the case before the national courts.  full story

Racism in Northern Ireland: 'They called our children monkeys'

Belfast, 14.6.2014 8:46, (The Guardian) Mixed-race couple tell of daily abuse they faced for six years in Belfast as statistics show a sharp rise in racist incidents  full story