World

France: Roma celebrity Eric Cantona offers to house asylum-seekers

29.9.2015 21:40 Online news server TheLocal.fr reported on 10 September that famous ex-footballer Eric Cantona has criticized the French Government's approach to asylum-seekers and is ready to house them in his own home. Cantona made his remarks in an interview for the French daily Le Parisien.  full story

Iulius Rostas: Social change for Roma is not about money, but political will

28.9.2015 19:33 Iulius Rostas is a Visiting Lecturer at Corvinus University of Budapest currently teaching a course on "Roma - State and European Policies". News server Romea.cz interviewed him about the course and his work.  full story

Amnesty International: EU refugee summit lacked courage, chaos will continue

25.9.2015 19:12 European politicians have been criticized by human rights NGOs over the results of their extraordinary summit on migration. Amnesty International (AI) believes the summit's emphasis on protecting the EU's external borders ignores both the reality of the global migration crisis and those countries' obligations to offer protection to those who cannot find it elsewhere.  full story

EU approves refugee redistribution quotas, extraordinary summit says chaos must end

24.9.2015 20:55 On 22 September the interior ministers of the EU-28 cast a majority vote to approve quotas for redistribution of refugees among EU countries. Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec tweeted that those opposed were the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, while Finland abstained.  full story

European Association for the Defence of Human Rights: Europe, quo vadis?

24.9.2015 19:19 Is there a migrant and/or refugee crisis? Or is there a European crisis? The European Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AEDH) considers that this issue has implications for the future of the European Union, given the powerful consequences of member states’ decisions for the rights of migrants, whether they are fleeing war, repression, poverty or death. While thousands of human beings – men, women and children – have put their faith in Europe in order to survive and rebuild their lives, the governments of EU countries have responded with, at best, a limited form of generosity and, at worst, national preference, violence, xenophobia and racism. The Council of Ministers’ failure to understand that global instability cannot be solved with barriers or walls has led to meetings that reveal serious flaws in European integration. Despite claiming to uphold the rule of law, it has shown itself to be fearful, poisoned by suspicion and even hatred of outsiders. Some governments have spread the illusion of an illegal and organised invasion to justify the use of violence, with potentially fatal consequences.  full story

Spanish Romani Union offers to aid Gov't with Romani refugees from Syria and elsewhere

23.9.2015 23:07 The Spanish Romani Union (SRU) sent a letter on 7 September to Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría offering the services of its Legal Department for working with Romani and other refugees about to be redistributed to Spain by the European Union. In the letter, the SRU praises the Government for publicly confirming that Spain will not turn away any asylum-seekers and for creating an inter-ministerial commission on the issue of refugee redistribution.  full story

European Parliament supports Commission's proposal for refugee redistribution

23.9.2015 19:03 On 17 September the European Parliament supported by a large majority the European Commission's proposal to redistribute 120 000 asylum-seekers currently in Greece, Hungary and Italy throughout the EU-28. The vote preceded the recent meeting of EU Member State interior ministers at which the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia were outvoted on the issue of quotas for redistribution.  full story

Zazzle responds about anti-Gypsyist T-shirt

23.9.2015 16:50 News server Romea.cz reported yesterday that the German-language pages of the Zazzle online retailer were offering a T-shirt reading "GYPSY HUNTER BADGE - WE KILL THE GYPSIES". The item was no longer for sale approximately two hours later.  full story

European Commission wants concrete statistics on the integration of disadvantaged children into Czech schools

23.9.2015 5:21 The European Commission will be following the Czech Republic's next steps aiming at better integrating children from socially disadvantaged families into the Czech school system. EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová announced the news today after meeting with Czech Education Minister Kateřina Valachová in Brussels.  full story

Juan de Dios Ramírez-Heredia: Hunger and fear are stronger than barbed-wire fences

23.9.2015 1:32 The following opinion piece by Juan de Dios Ramírez-Heredia, former Member of the European Parliament and current President of the Spanish Romani Union, was first distributed through the Roma Virtual Network on 17 September 2015 and is reprinted here with permission.
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T-shirt reading "WE KILL THE GYPSIES" for sale online by Zazzle

22.9.2015 17:26 At 15:12 CET today the Czech edition of news server Romea.cz reported that the German-language pages of the Zazzle online retailer were offering a T-shirt reading "GYPSY HUNTER BADGE - WE KILL THE GYPSIES". Zazzle is one of the biggest, must progressive firms in its field, offering customers the opportunity to create their own logos for placement on T-shirts or other items and then to sell their creations through the firm's online store.  full story

Central European artists and politicians call for solidarity with migrants

18.9.2015 20:51 Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Associated Press (AP) report that Czech film director Jiří Menzel and former Czech Prime Minister Petr Pithart are among hundreds of artists and politicians from Central Europe who have called on the citizens and representatives of their countries to demonstrate solidarity with asylum-seekers. The AFP reports that Central European citizens frequently are antagonistic and sometimes hostile towards migrants coming to Europe.  full story

Bulgarian NGOs get injunction suspending demolition of Roma homes in Peshtera

17.9.2015 20:48 A Bulgarian coalition of Romani NGOs called the National Roma Coalition "Intellect" has issued a press release in response to the advice given to the Bulgarian Government by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on 15 September. The ECtHR has advised that “without a definite commitment on its part to ensure the accommodation of the vulnerable members of the applicants’ families before the demolition of their homes, the Court will, in application of Rule 39 of its Rules, indicate to that Government not to proceed with this measure”.
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Hungarian Police beat up international journalists during use of force against refugees

17.9.2015 18:43 Hungarian police officers involved with yesterday's intervention against refugees on the border with Serbia beat up and detained journalists from abroad. One was a reporter for the Slovak newspaper Denník N, which reported the incident today.  full story

Renata Berkyová: Slovak party wants to take Romani children from their families to counter public fears

16.9.2015 22:50 One might think that the state removing children from the care of their own parents in order to re-educate them is an historical phenomenon only. In Slovakia, though, Ms Nicholsonová of the "Freedom and Solidarity" Party has said she believes such a concept could spare Romani children from "inhuman treatment" in the settlements.  full story

RVN Editor Valery Novoselsky: Everything online becomes visible, even in the mahallas

15.9.2015 18:59 Anyone who has become interested in Romani issues during the past 15 years has probably come across the Roma Virtual Network (RVN) online, a set of 33 listservs in 20 languages, Romani included, that aggregates online information about Romani issues and shares it with more than 10 000 subscribers. News server Romea.cz interviewed RVN’s editor, Valery Novoselsky, about this work and RVN's future plans.  full story

Forum 2000 opens with debate about segregation of Roma in the Czech schools

14.9.2015 23:24 The 19th annual Forum 2000 conference began yesterday in Prague, entitled "Democracy and Education". The event, first launched by former Czech President Václav Havel in 1997, will feature many discussions and lectures, including events outside of Prague, and ends Wednesday.  full story

Hungarian camerawoman who kicked refugees including children being investigated by police

13.9.2015 8:23 Hungary has been shaken by a brief video taken at its border with Serbia that shows a camerawoman for Hungary's N1TV station kicking young refugee boys and girls and tripping a refugee carrying a child as they make their way through a Hungarian Police cordon. Other journalists captured the camerawoman's behavior on film.  full story

Bulgaria and France reprimanded by UN Human Rights Commissioner over Roma displacement

12.9.2015 20:38 Yesterday the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, called on Bulgaria and France to stop forcibly clearing Romani encampments. The High Commissioner said that French authorities evidently have been engaging in a "systematic policy" of this practice since 2012.  full story

Human Rights Watch says Czech debate on migration would cause an uproar if understood in the West

11.9.2015 20:17 According to Andrew Stroehlein of the Brussels branch of Human Rights Watch (HRW), the domestic public debate about the refugee crisis is being led in the Czech Republic in a way that would cause an international uproar if it were happening in a Western European country. The reputation of the Czech Republic and its politicians, he believes, is protected to a significant degree by the fact that few people outside the country speak Czech.  full story