Sunday, August 3, 2008

ROMA AND SINTI IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

The treatment and conditions of the Roma/Sinti in the European Union are deteriorating quickly.
There has been another revival of the radical right throughout Europe.
The harsher the economic uncertainty, the more the least powerful are scapegoated as the cause of problems.

The other/alien/immigrant becomes the target of hate which is encouraged by governments and the press. Sometimes the encouragement is subtle, sometimes overt.
Consider the Italian Government's census of Roma /Sinti.

Romani/Sinti groups throughout Europe are calling for politicians to stop spreading right wing/anti Roma ideologies.


In Hungary the number of physical attacks on Roma have been rising at alarming rates.

Finland has announced a crackdown on Roma immigrants.


Forced sterilizations of Roma women are still being performed in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia.

The Czech National Party has announced it will soon release their plan called "The Final Solution to the Gypsy Issue in the Czech Lands".


Oh course they say they don't want to kill Romanis, just ship them all to India.



How immigrants/undocumented people are treated is important and revealing.

The treatment of people without documents in this country is deplorable: families broken up, people locked up.....

In Europe, Roma are targeted as the other and blamed for everything from crime to disease to society's woes in general.

In the US it is Spanish speaking people.

The " immigration debate" is framed in terms which I find disturbing and dehumanizing---- illegal alien, undocumented worker.
I gag when I even write 'undocumented'. It's one of those words that immediately sends visions of nazi germany.


Dehumanization is a step.

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