http://youtu.be/z1fDvJnlmdY
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A Call For Solidarity And Action On Dale Farm
20 September 2011
It’s a trend: institutional hostility to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. Remember last summer’s expulsion of Roma from France. That is still on-going, by-the-way, just that President Sarkozy has learnt not to boast about it. The Danes had there own summer hostility towards Roma and the Italian authorities are constantly dismantling Roma camps throughout Italy. And there are serious institutional racial issues against Roma in Hungary and the Czech Republic.
This summer has seen the British authorities in the limelight. Beforehand this country was perceived as a bastion of multiculturalism, let alone tolerance. Now one has the spectacle of the forced eviction of the largest Traveller site in Europe. From a former scrapyard that they bought ten years ago.
I recall from last summer that it was the Irish Traveller Movement in the UK that led the protests outside the French Embassy against the deportation of Roma. Now is the time for Roma groups and those who work with and support Roma to show similar solidarity. Staff at Equality have been helping the residents of Dale Farm. We need your help.
Time is pressing. Dale Farm has won an injunction in court that stays the forced eviction until a High Court hearing on Friday 23 August.
You can help. Every action may contribute to swaying those that have the gift to influence the outcome. There is a solution: the residents have said they will move at no cost to an alternative site, and sites have been identified by a government agency, if only the local authority that so wants to evict the Travellers would consider these planning applications first.
If you live in the UK, please write to your MP and MEP about Dale Farm today. This link will locate your MP and MEPs and prepare an email to send them. Please use your own words to describe what you want the MP/MEP to do about Dale Farm. That is more powerful than using prepared email texts.
Find the contact form on http://equality.uk.com/Blog/Entries/2011/9/20_A_call_for_solidarity.html
If you live outside of the UK (and also those that live within the UK), please write to Ms Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Mr Thomas Hammarberg, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights.
Clicking on the underlined links should prepare the email header for you. Just spend a few minutes describing what you want these representatives to do.
And last action please write to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, who is denying the UN Regional Representative for Europe, Jan Jarab, the possibility to visit the UK to mediate a solution.
Ten minutes of your time. It may make a difference to the lives of 86 families at Dale Farm.
Thank you for your help!
Alan Anstead MCIPR
Founder & Chief Executive
Equality
T: +44 (0)1787 371504
M:+44 (0)7704 616909
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