Features and Commentary

Analysis: The Czech state's response to the "Year of Extremism"

Prague, 18.7.2014 22:18, (ROMEA) Last year extremists in the Czech Republic convened a total of 272 events, 136 fewer than in 2012 - at least according to the Czech Interior Ministry. So, did we all just imagine those frequent street battles between demonstrators and police last year, or is someone intentionally making fun of us here?  full story

Analysis: Vlastimil Pechanec - neo-Nazi martyr or hard-core murderer?

Prague, 17.7.2014 18:37, (ROMEA) On 21 July 2014 it will be 13 years since Otto Absolon, a father of two young children, died at the hands of a local neo-Nazi, Vlastimil Pechanec, in the East Bohemian town of Svitavy. At the end of last month, Mr Absolon's murderer was conditionally released from prison.  full story

videoBBC: England team's first Romany footballer 'deserves recognition'

London, 19.6.2014 17:01, (ROMEA) In 1895 Rabbi Howell made history as the first Romany footballer to play for England, but 119 years on the pioneering player lies buried in an unmarked grave. Now as an appeal to raise funds for a headstone begins, what is the story behind Howell's ground-breaking career and have sporting attitudes to the Romany community changed?  full story

Violeta Naydenova: For Roma in France, Is Climate of Intolerance Fueling Violence?

Bucharest/Paris, 19.6.2014 0:45, (ROMEA) Somewhere in a hospital in Paris tonight, a Roma teenager lies in a coma fighting for his life. Accounts suggest that the boy, known to us only as Darius, was accused of burglary by residents of a poverty-stricken public housing development in Pierefitte-sur-Sienne; they subsequently abducted him, beat him into a coma in a basement, and dumped his body in a shopping trolley.  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

Meet the EU Parliament’s (Likely) First-Elected Feminist Party Member

Stockholm, 24.5.2014 17:36, (ROMEA) Europe's parliamentary elections are expected to end this weekend with a surprising first: The first-ever member elected from a feminist party to the European Parliament. Less surprising is the likely MEP’s country of origin, Sweden. The bastion of gender equality has a nine-year-old feminist political party, the Feminist Initiative (which also has outposts in Germany and France), and it is on track to secure the 4 percent of the country’s vote necessary to send a representative to the EU’s legislative body. At the top of the party’s batting order is Soraya Post, 57, a longtime human rights activist who spoke to the Cut from Stockholm, where she’s wrapping up her campaign.  full story

16 May 1944: Romani Resistance Day

Prague, 9.5.2014 0:15, (ROMEA) It seems that the denial of genocide and the denial of racism are communicating vessels. An ethnic group whose genocide is denied continues to be targeted with racism.  full story

Pitomio Bandas Manic of the Workers' Dawn of Healthy Imprudence: Eradicate inadaptability from the EU!

Czech Republic, European Union, 8.5.2014 0:35, (ROMEA) Pitomio Bandas Manic, the chair of the Workers' Dawn of Healthy Imprudence (Dělnický úsvit zdravého nerozumu - DÚZN), who is its leading candidate for the EP race, would like to enforce the abolition of the European Union. Before he succeeds with that, he will fight for reduced unemployment and restrictions on immigration.  full story

Bartoloměj Oláh: We can't have educated Roma running around here

Prague, 7.5.2014 0:39, (ROMEA) Ever since I was a child, I have often encountered people here who "mean well". These are people who have thought about my needs, who didn't want to hold me back, who didn't want me to live on the fringes of society, or to be come a "classic aggressor" because, as a Romani child, that might be the only way for me to excel.  full story

Are these "gypsies" or Roma, rumors vs. real life?

Brno, 16.4.2014 21:09, (ROMEA) You can tell a public discussion in the Czech Republic is about Romani people by one particular feature: There are always more "experts" sitting in the hall than on the panel, and they unfortunately never have enough of an opportunity to speak. All of their time is usurped by the "pseudo-humanists" who are invited to address them.  full story

videoJovanovic: This is a constant battle for self-definition and we are resolved to win it, as long as we live

Budapest, 10.4.2014 22:11, (ROMEA) Forty-three years ago, the founding fathers of April 8th, gave answers to fundamental questions every nation faces at a certain point. They knew that answers they gave will not be obligatory to anyone. They knew that the answers they gave will not be imposed on us by any governmental decrees, history classes, monuments, museums, memorials, or military parades. And they also knew that these answers must be given by Roma instead of being given by somebody else.  full story

George Soros: Three Ways to Build Upon Roma Progress

Brussels, 9.4.2014 0:30, (ROMEA) Some years ago, I visited a village in Romania, and saw the seeds of a crisis at hand. The area was home to the Roma, an ethnic minority of 10 to 12 million people scattered across Europe who face discrimination and persecution on a daily basis. In this village, the Roma were scavenging on a garbage dump. Without help, I realized, sons would join their fathers on the dump; daughters could only hope to be married off. There was no clear way to escape their fate.  full story

Maja Saitovic: To Achieve Roma Equality, Europe Must Address Health Disparities

EU, 28.3.2014 10:22, (ROMEA) Like all Europeans, we represent the patients, caregivers, and families—as well as the doctors, nurses, and paramedics—who make up Europe’s health systems.   full story

A Roma Reality Check for the UK

London, 27.3.2014 10:19, (ROMEA) Recent months have seen politicians and the media in the UK predicting an influx of Roma migrants from Bulgaria and Romania. Roma have been portrayed as a threat to British society in the form of welfare tourists and beggars. The reality is rather different. The UK is not among the preferred destinations of Roma from other EU countries, and the small number of Roma who have arrived in the UK have much to offer.  full story

Jan Josef Rosenberg: Roma are now doctors and teachers, but we can't forget about morality

Prague, 20.3.2014 22:03, (ROMEA) Jan Josef Rosenberg is a journalist and photographer who works in film, radio and theater. On 8 April 2014, International Romani Day, the public will once again have the opportunity to see one of his unique exhibitions, "Roma Today as They Were Centuries Ago" ("Romové dnes jako před staletími").  full story

Valeriu Nicolae: Avoiding failing again -The EU Roma Summit – problems and solutions

Bucharest, 20.3.2014 11:57, (ROMEA) The biggest problems in the Roma Social Inclusion process are related to the inability, incompetence and lack of political will at the level of the national governments. There are ways to address these problems but due to strong anti-Gypsyism and corruption addressing these problems is a much more complicated process than solving the existing problems within the European Commission (EC).  The EC  needs to pressure states into reform but has no legitimacy to do so if it doesn’t first change itself.  full story

Commentary: The Roma and the Vietnamese, or the "evil" and the "good" aliens

Prague, 19.3.2014 19:39, (ROMEA) Opinions on the so-called "Roma question" are encoded in the generally popular comparisons of Romani and Vietnamese people that we hear being made in the Czech Republic. In these figures of speech, where Vietnamese people play a purely rhetorical role, the "Roma question" is actually the main topic of discussion; such tropes are essentially just a more sophisticated form of "cursing the Gypsies" here.  full story

Repairing the Damage of a Roma Eviction

Bucharest, 19.3.2014 10:15, (ROMEA) In early December 2010, over 70 Roma families lived on Coastei Street in downtown Cluj-Napoca, Romania’s second biggest city. Many had been in this long-established community for years.  full story

Cyril Koky: Ukraine, where are you heading?

Prague, 18.3.2014 23:36, (ROMEA) Everyone is closely watching what is happening in Ukraine today with horror and an appropriate dose of fear. Ukraine has been seething since November, when its government halted preparations for signing an association agreement with the EU and called for expanding economic cooperation with Russia.  full story

Hungarian filmmaker: Attacks persist, Roma live in fear

Prague, 18.3.2014 20:27, (ROMEA) Starting in March 2011, documentary filmmaker Eszter Hajdú spent more than 170 days in a courtroom filming what would become the documentary "Judgment in Hungary", which tells the story of the trial of four right-wing extremists charged with murdering six Romani people. During that time, she said the hardest thing was to see how the relatives of the victims who testified in court were suffering.  full story