Open Letter from Roma Community Centre (RCC),
Toronto, Canada.
PHOTO Prof. Margalit - Haifa's Roma Expert Keeps Quiet
Dear Professor Margalit:
I am writing to you on behalf of Roma Community
Centre (RCC), based in Toronto, Canada. Ours is a not-for-profit organization
dedicated to helping newly arrived and Canadian Roma. Part of our mandate is to
raise awareness about the ongoing abuses of human rights of the Romani people
and Europe’s rapidly growing neo-Nazi movements that promote anti-Roma racism,
persecution and hate.
You may be aware that University of Haifa is about
to confer an honorary doctorate upon the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration, Jason Kenney, and this is our reason for writing you this letter.
We feel that you, as a scholar of Roma and the Holocaust, should know that this
is taking place, and we wish to convey to you pertinent information about this
matter.
Of particular concern to us is the strong stance currently taken against Roma by
Mr. Kenney, particularly in light of the nationalist, extreme right and neo-Nazi
paramilitary movements currently sweeping Hungary. The anti-Roma, anti-Semitic
Jobbik Party now has 47 members (12.2%) in the current Hungarian Parliament
(more parliamentary seats than any other far-right party since the Nazi era), as
well as three MPs in the European Parliament.
In 2011, Jobbik’s paramilitary wing, Civil Guard, occupied a Romani
neighbourhood in Gyöngyöspata, where the Roma residents were threatened with
dogs, their children followed to and from school, their houses surrounded, and
vigilante checkpoints set up, all as police stood by. Sixty-seven families fled
Gyöngyöspata to seek safety in Canada. We fear that they were not granted refuge
here, because Mr. Kenney has stated publicly that Roma refugee claims are
‘bogus’ – despite Canada’s own immigration law requiring refugee claimants to be
assessed case by case. He maintains that Hungary is a safe place for Roma.
However, Athena Institute (and other human rights organisations) provide
evidence that the truth is far different; furthermore, they show that what is
happening to Roma in Hungary is also happening to Jews.
The Gyöngyöspata
incident is not an isolated one. Pogroms and neo-Nazi demonstrations are now
taking place across Hungary. Roma are targeted, threatened, beaten and even
murdered. A recent survey revealed that sixty percent of Hungarians believe that
Roma have “criminality in their blood”. Footage of the Gyöngyöspata
occupation includes a neo-Nazi proudly announcing that he is urinating on the
ground in the shape of a swastika, and a woman reporting that a member of the
Civil Patrol threatened her that “I will build my house with your blood”.
Chillingly, right after the occupation, a far-right Jobbik mayor was elected in
Gyöngyöspata. And Jobbik has called for Roma families to be rounded up and
placed in special “public order protection” camps.
Unfortunately,
Mr. Kenney’s statements have encouraged expressions of outright racism against
our people. On a recent broadcast of “The Source with Ezra Levant”, titled
“The Jew vs. the Gypsies”, Mr. Levant delivered an incendiary
diatribe against Roma in which he referred to us as a “scourge”,
“deviant”; a “Gypsy crime wave” who “gypped their way into
Canada”. In his broadcast Ezra Levant invoked the hate speech of the third
Reich: some of his epithets echo Nazi descriptors of Roma: “asocials”;
“racial inferiors”; “aliens” (having “alien” blood); and, along
with Jews, “Untermenschen” or “non-persons”. Further, we were
alarmed to discover that on his website, Ezra Levant refers to Mr. Kenney as
“my favourite MP” (Member of Parliament), and that he is on the Tribute
Committee of Canadian Friends of Haifa University to honour Mr.
Kenney.
Mr. Kenney’s insistence that Roma refugee claims are
“bogus’, Mr. Levant’s frightening and malignant diatribe, and the notable
silence of both men about the growing neo-Nazi movement in Hungary, lend
implicit support to the anti-Semitic, anti-Roma Jobbik Party.
Nor has Mr.
Kenney spoken out against Jobbik’s developing relationship with Iran. In
January, 2011, the Jobbik leadership and an invited Iranian delegation discussed
economic, trade and cultural relations in Tiszavasvári, Hungary, which Jobbik
leader Gabor Vona calls “the capital of our movement.” After the Jobbik
candidate won Tiszavasvári’s mayoral election, “he created a uniformed ….
‘gendarmerie’ to patrol Roma neighborhoods to combat what he called “Gypsy
crime.”
Documentation of the above information I have provided will
be made available to you at your request.
We have communicated our dismay to
the University of Haifa. Nevertheless, on November 4, in Toronto, Jason Kenney
is to be awarded an honorary doctorate by the University.
Roma Community
Centre is not along in voicing our concern. On behalf of a group of eighteen
Toronto Jewish doctors, Dr. Philip Berger wrote to Dr. Aharon Ben-Ze’ev,
President of University of Haifa that “The (Canadian government) immigration
policy changes have also provoked outrage in the Jewish community…. Notably the
Toronto Board of Rabbis supported by Elie Weisel oppose the
changes.”
Mitchell Goldberg of the Canadian Association of Refugee
Lawyers, in a letter to Dr. Ben-Ze’ev, wrote:
“We remind you that
Canada was one of several countries that, in 1939, turned away over 900 Jewish
refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. At the time, a Canadian official was asked how
many Jews Canada should accept. His reply was ‘none is too many’. Here is
what the present law, drafted by Minister Kenney, would say and do about those
Jewish refugees were they to arrive today:
“The SS St. Louis was
piloted by human smugglers intent on abusing Canadian immigration system. The
passengers are part of a ‘human smuggling event’ and will be automatically
detained. If their refugee claims are rejected, they will be deported back to
Germany with no chance to appeal the negative decision. If their refugee claims
are accepted, these German Jews may or may not be released from detention before
a year has passed. It will be important to detain them for as long as possible
in order to send a message to other German Jews not to try the same thing, lest
Canada be flooded with Jewish refugees. In any case, the Jews aboard the SS St.
Louis cannot rescue family members left behind in Germany, because ‘irregular
arrivals’ must be punished for using smugglers: Even if they are accepted as
refugees, they are ineligible to sponsor family members for five years. By that
time, it will be 1943. The Nazi’s Final Solution will be in full
operation.”
Professor Margalit, we hope that you share our deep
concern. If you wish, we can forward you our correspondence to the University of
Haifa administration. We have requested that University reconsider granting an
honorary doctorate to Jason Kenney. Mr. Kenney insults not only the memory of
Roma murdered along with Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, but the present-day Roma
being targeted by those intent upon continuing the work of the third
Reich.
Sincerely,
Lynn Hutchinson Lee
Chair, Social Justice
Committee
Roma Community Centre
2340 Dundas St. W., Suite G20
Toronto,
ON
M6P 4A9website:
facebook
group: Toronto Roma Community Centre
The Roma Community Centre is
committed to Celebrating Romani Culture, Successful Settlement, Promoting Human
Rights, Community Developing Initiatives, and Cultivating Community
Partnerships.
Veröffentlicht am 5. September 2012
by Lynn
Hutchinson Lee
Here is a letter RCC has just sent to the governors &
administrators of Haifa University, Israel, who are conferring an honorary
doctorate on Jason Kenney. Letter is v. long – see below:
Dear Mr.
Charney, Mr. Ayalon, Mr. Shapira, Professor Faraggi and Mr. Gaver:
Roma Community Centre is a
not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping newly arrived and Canadian
Roma. Part of our mandate is to raise awareness about the ongoing abuses of
human rights of the Romani people and Europe’s rapidly growing neo-Nazi
movements that promote anti-Roma racism, persecution and hate.
It is with
great dismay that our organisation has learned that Haifa University intends to
confer an honorary doctorate, in Toronto on November 4, upon Canadian Minister
for Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney. According to the Canadian Friends
of Haifa University website, among several reasons cited, this award is being
granted “in recognition of his steadfast position against antisemitism, racism
and intolerance”. We feel it is imperative to share with you our concerns about
Mr. Kenney’s position on Hungarian Roma refugees now seeking safety in Canada,
particularly in light of the nationalist, extreme right and
neo-Nazi
paramilitary movements in Hungary. Please refer to:
‘Meet
Europe’s New Fascists – Hungary’s far-right activists used to rally in the
streets. Now they’re in parliament, where their party, Jobbik, is stoking hatred
of Jews and Roma’
Disturbing information about Mr. Kenney, which may
not be known to you, is that he was
honoured at a Croatian event in Canada,
during which he said that “
I have in my office a prayer card with a picture
of Cardinal Stepinac….he was one of the great heroes of the 20th century”.
As you may know, Cardinal
Stepinac
was a pro-Nazi war criminal and supporter of the Nazi satellite regime
(Ustasha) in Croatia ). In 1943, Stepinac was found guilty of Nazi
collaboration.
HUNGARY: SAFE FOR
ROMA?Mr. Kenney has publicly stated that Roma refugee claims are
‘
bogus’, and that Hungary is a safe place for Roma. On December 2, 2011,
he insisted on Hungarian television that Roma suffer ‘occasional acts of
discrimination.’
The truth is far different – a web of well-documented,
systemic racism and persecution:
• entry into Parliament and increasing
influence of a far-right, anti-Roma, anti-Jewish party called
Jobbik;
•
illegal segregated and substandard schooling for Roma children;
• grossly
inequitable access to adequate housing, employment and health care (see
“
Poor, abused and second-class: the Roma living in fear in Hungarian
village”
at
• Jobbik leader Gabor Vona’s proposal to remove Roma children from their
families, and place them in residential schools;
•
Jobbik
MEP Csanad Szegedi’s advocacy of ‘public order protection camps’ for Roma
• the introduction of labour camps, under police supervision, for
Roma
‘
Torchlit
marches, school segregation and talk of labour camps has Roma fearing for their
lives after far-right party Jobbik came to power in Gyöngyöspata’).
•
ongoing
threats and acts of violence by neo-Nazi vigilantes now increasing. Please
refer
to:
‘
Hungary:
Murders of Roma people were planned’;
“I WILL BUILD MY HOUSE WITH YOUR
BLOOD”
We urge you to take a few minutes of your time to look at
video documentation shot during the 2011 neo-Nazi Civil Guard occupation of the
Romani neighbourhood of Gyongyospata, a village in Hungary. Please go
to:
You
will see:
• a Romani woman quoting a neo-Nazi threat: “
I will build my
house with your blood” (0:28);
• neo-Nazi Jobbik rally in Gyöngyöspata
(0:45 – 1:28);
• a Romani man stating that “
we will move out of
Gyöngyöspata, take our children and family because we have been terrorized for
two months” (4:38);
• neo-Nazi Alex proudly announcing that he is
urinating on the ground in the shape of a swastika (4:57 – 5:04);
• election
of far-right Jobbik mayor in Gyöngyöspata (7:34 – 8:01);
• concluding text:
“
67 Roma villagers have left to claim asylum in Canada” (8:06 –
8:10).
Administrators and Governors, this brings us back to Jason Kenney: did
Canada grant asylum to those villagers from Gyöngyöspata fleeing neo-Nazism? Or
did we send them back to Hungary, as we sent Jews back to Nazi Germany in
1939?
JEWISH ACTIVISTS WRITE
• A June 15,
2012, Globe and Mail newspaper
article
by Canadians Bernie Farber, Philip Berger and Clayton Ruby (respectively a
prominent Jewish advocate, doctor and lawyer) states that “…
with resurgence
of neo-Nazism in parts of Hungary and elsewhere in Europe, Roma face violent
attacks. Many have tried to flee to Canada, where doors have once again become
hard to pry open … Today, we go on record as Jews and descendants of immigrants
to say that we oppose cuts to refugee health care and the designation of
so-called ‘safe’ countries …. As Jews and human rights activists, we know well
that countries deemed safe for the majority can be deadly for some
minorities.”
• On July 16, Bernie Farber wrote of Mr. Kenney’s
legislative proposal in Huffington Post, “
One of the more pernicious elements
of the new Immigration and Refugee Bill C-31 is the so-called ‘Designated Safe
Country’ (DSO) rule.” He continues, “
I am proud of my own community for
standing shoulder to shoulder with the Roma over many decades of persecution.
Historically both our communities understood the ultimate expression of hatred;
for us it was the Holocaust or in Hebrew the Shoah; for the Roma, the only other
group targeted by the Nazis for extermination, it was called the ‘Porajmos’
or the ‘Devouring.’”
• A March 5, 2009,
letter
from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to Hungarian President László Sólyom stated
that “
in ‘Judenrein’ (ethnically cleansed of Jews) Eastern Europe where the
Holocaust succeeded, antisemitism persists as a phantom pain syndrome – the body
still seeks to scratch the missing limb.” A press statement (“Solidarity
with Roma after pogrom in Hungary”) said the letter identified “
today’s
target of hate” as “the Roma community – over 700,000 people in Hungary alone.
Also marked for extermination by the Nazis, scapegoated for the current economic
crisis by neo-Nazis, Gypsophobia must not become acceptable to the mainstream in
Eastern Europe in the way that antisemitism has become an epidemic in the
West.”
ROMA COMMUNITY CENTRE OPEN LETTER
On
August 18 the Globe and Mail
reported
that Canada is now taking steps to detain Roma refugee claimants while awaiting
more aggressive immigration policies to shut off the flow of Roma admitted to
Canada. Volunteers at Roma Community Centre have heard that perhaps 75 Roma are
already in detention.
In an August 25
open
letter to Mr. Kenney and Canadian Prime minster Stephen Harper, RCC
Executive Director Gina Csanyi-Robah
outlined
the current political climate in Hungary: “
Jobbik, an extreme right-wing
ultra-nationalist political part, which openly expresses hatred and promotes
violence toward the Roma and Jewish minorities in Hungary, is currently the
second largest political party operating in Hungary”
The RCC
continues:
“Many of the small cities, towns, and villages in Hungary,
especially where there is a significant concentration of Roma living, now have
mayors and city councillors that are members of the Jobbik party. In 2009, when
the Hungarian government made a move to ban the Hungarian Guards, Jobbik
political party leader, Mr. Gabor Vona, taunted Prime Minister Viktor Orban and
the ruling Fidez party by wearing the banned Hungarian Guards uniform to the
Hungarian National Assembly the very next day. He was applauded by the 47 Jobbik
(21%) Members of Parliament …. This past Saturday (August 25), thousands of
uniformed Hungarian Guards carrying the Arrow Cross flag of the WWII Hungarian
Nazis marched up Andrassy Utca, the street famous for its international
embassies, toward the landmark Hero’s Square in central Budapest.”
Nazi Germany – 1930’s; Neo-Nazis, Hungary –
2000’s
In the Nazi era, up to 1.5 million Roma were murdered
(International Organisation for Migration, November 2001). Simon Wiesenthal, in
a 1984 letter to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, wrote: “
The Gypsies had
been murdered in a proportion similar to the Jews, about 80% of them in the area
of the countries which were occupied by the Nazis.”
In 2010 Jobbik
took more parliamentary seats in Hungary than any other far-right party since
the Nazi era. The following year, on March 1, 2011, the Hungarian neo-Nazi
vigilante group Civil Guard took control of a Romani neighbourhood in the
village of Gyöngyöspata, where they set up checkpoints at the entrance to the
neighbourhood and formed a human chain around the houses of Romani residents. On
March 17, the European Roma Rights Centre wrote to Hungarian authorities,
reporting that the Civil Guard patrols
“threaten (Romani residents) with
weapons and dogs, and follow them every time they leave their houses, unimpeded
by local police … The patrols have been supported by the far-right political
party Jobbik, which organized a march of thousands through the village in black
military uniform on March 6th. Finally, the (Civil Guard) indicated that … they
will also set up chapters in other towns to expand their
patrols.”
Richard Field writes that on July 25 2102, “
the Bekes
county court rejected the public prosecutor’s request that the so-called Civil
Guard….the paramilitary organization behind last year’s anti-Roma disturbances
be disbanded”. Two anti-Roma demonstrations
followed.
WHAT RCC SENT TO JASON
KENNEY
In addition to the open letter mentioned above, since June
RCC members have sent Mr. Kenney the following information:
• June 18,
2012: the Washington Post
reported
that Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel (himself a
recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Haifa University)
repudiated
the Grand Cross Order of Merit he received from Hungary in 2004, after
learning that Budapest officials had attended a recent ceremony for Jozef Nyiro,
a WW II Hungarian parliamentarian and Nazi sympathizer. In a letter to Hungarian
Parliamentary Speaker Lazlo Kover, Mr. Wiesel expressed his dismay at the
presence of the Speaker, along with Hungarian Secretary of State for Culture
Geza Szocs, and leader of the far-right Jobbik party Gabor Vona, at the
ceremony. (In 2007 Vona founded Magyar Garda, the paramilitary organization that
in March 2011 terrorized the Roma community in Gyongyospata, Hungary.)
;
• August 6, 2012: a press statement from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre
was issued on the 68th anniversary of the Porrajmos (‘Devouring’), the Nazi
genocide of Roma and Sinti. In the press statement, a letter from Wiesenthal
Centre’s Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, to the
Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, stated that
“
the common fate of Jews and Gypsies determined by the Nazi race theorists
led the late Simon Wiesenthal to work closely with Roma and Sinti
survivors.” Concerning Hungary, the press statement says: “
The Centre
pointed to ‘its particular focus on Hungary, due to the infiltration of hate
into the mainstream politics of that country and even its representatives at the
European Parliament.’ Sadly, we have yet to receive an adequate response
regarding our appeals to the Hungarian authorities for effective
counter-action.”
NONE IS TOO
MANY?
Administrators and Governors of Haifa University, you
may know that in 1939, Canada turned back a ship carrying 900 Jews to face the
Nazi Holocaust. A Canadian immigration official at the time said of Jewish
asylum seekers fleeing Nazi Germany that “
None is too many.”
Given
the well-documented growth of ultra-right violence against Jews and Roma in
Hungary, we believe that the Roma deserve a better reception from Canada than
that given to Jews in 1939. Distressingly, “
None is too many” seems to
inform the current federal government’s policy on Roma refugees.
In spite
of the information presented above (and more), Jason Kenney
continues
to malign Roma as making
‘bogus’ refugee claims with designs on
Canada’s social services, and still upholds Hungary as a safe place for this
vulnerable and persecuted minority.
In conclusion, we invite you to
contrast Mr. Kenney’s approach with that of U.S. Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton, in her press statement commemorating International Roma Day, April 8,
2012:
“They are segregated, beaten, and systematically discriminated
against. They are denied access to an education and to jobs. Despite a decade of
progress, during this global economic downturn incidents of anti-Roma rhetoric
and violence are on the rise……. We believe governments have a special
responsibility to ensure that members of the Roma community – and all minority
communities – have the tools to succeed as productive members of
society.”
(The full text is attached to this message.) As well,
please find
attached
an image: ‘Germany 1932; Hungary 2012’, as well as a list of documented
neo-Nazi hate groups in Hungary
In light of Mr. Kenney’s continued
refusal to acknowledge the seriousness of the clear and growing neo-Nazi threat
in Hungary, and in light of the documented information we have provided, we
respectfully ask: is this a person upon whom Haifa University wishes to confer
an Honorary Doctorate?
