STATEMENT FROM UNITED STATES MISSION TO THE OSCE

We are very happy to read the following statement by the US Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

I suggest we Romani in the United States confront the misrepresentation and also seize the opportunity presented in Paragraph # 3, ("...the United States works to improve the situation of the Roma through our bilateral relations with the COUNTRIES WHERE THEY RESIDE...)

The implication is that there are no Romani in the United States and, if there were, they are certainly not the victims of stereotyping and prejudice.  And then there is the whole issue of Romani asylum seekers

And the prevalence of anti immigrant sentiment in general.

Leave comments.  I think we should strike while the iron is hot.
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United States Mission to the OSCE

Statement on Roma in Europe

As delivered by Ambassador Ian Kelly
to the Permanent Council, Vienna

September 9, 2010

The United States is greatly saddened by recent incidents targeting ethnic Roma including, most tragically, shootings. We extend our condolences to the families and community of the victims. We urge all European countries to seek ways to improve the socio-economic and security situation for their Roma residents and to ensure accountability for discrimination or violence directed at them, in accordance with OSCE commitments.

Protecting and promoting the human rights of Roma everywhere has long been a personal commitment for Secretary Clinton and, under the Obama Administration, it is a stated priority of the United States. Like all people, ethnic Roma should have the opportunity to live free from discrimination, enjoy equal access to education, healthcare and employment, and pursue their full potential.

The United States works to improve the situation of Roma through our bilateral relations with the countries where they reside and through our involvement in organizations such as the OSCE and the United Nations. The OSCE’s cross-dimensional and comprehensive view of security makes this organization uniquely poised to address the plight of Roma. We would like to acknowledge and express our appreciation for the important work performed by the OSCE’s Contact Point on Roma and Sinti issues, as well as the engagement of the High Commissioner on National Minorities. The connection between desperate poverty and a particular vulnerability to abuses such as discrimination, trafficking in persons, forced prostitution, and inequitable labor practices illustrates the need to address these issues cooperatively, comprehensively, and across all three dimensions.

We urge OSCE governments to review their policies concerning immigration and the rights of ethnic minority communities, especially Roma communities. In accordance with the values embodied by the OSCE and the commitments that the participating States have freely undertaken, we stand ready to work with our OSCE partners in this endeavor.

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

Barroso makes veiled criticism of French anti-Gypsy campaign. European commission president urges leaders to steer clear of racism and xenophobia, but doesn't name France

FROM GUARDIAN.CO.UK
BY Ian Traynor in Brussels
Tuesday 7 September 2010
José Manuel Barroso said in remarks indirectly aimed at France's deportation of Gypsy families that racism and xenophobia had no place in Europe. The EU executive today backed away from a confrontation with France over President Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-Gypsy campaign, widely viewed as breaking European law and human rights rules.

In his first annual "state of the union" address, billed as a major keynote speech to rank alongside that of the US president, José Manuel Barroso, president of the European commission, delivered veiled criticism for the first time of the French government's deportation of hundreds of Roma families in recent weeks.

He told the European parliament in Strasbourg that the rights of the EU's biggest ethnic minority – the 12 million-strong Roma community – had to be protected and warned European leaders to steer clear of the racism and discrimination of the past.

But Barroso failed to mention France explicitly and at a meeting with Sarkozy in Paris yesterday evening, according to officials in Brussels, he agreed to avoid turning the expulsion of thousands of Roma or Gypsies from France into "a controversy".

Liberals, Greens and social democratic MEPs last night accused the commission of a whitewash, while Sarkozy's parliamentary allies in the centre-right European People's party nervously sought to defeat a parliamentary resolution denouncing French government "racism".

The commission is the guardian of the EU treaties and has to rule on whether any of the 27 governments in the union are breaking European law.

Viviane Reding, the commissioner for justice and fundamental rights who has held several rounds of talks with the French authorities and has raised questions about the treatment of the Roma, stunned MEPs by praising Paris and ducking the key issue of whether the Sarkozy government was flouting the law.

She told the parliament in Strasbourg that the commission was taking "a clear but balanced position on the matter" and that she had received "very positive" signals from the French government. She was repeatedly heckled during her speech.

"It is so important that French [immigration] minister Eric Besson assured us publicly that the French authorities would treat all citizens in the same way and that there was no targeted action against the Roma or any other group and that the French authorities would do their best to act scrupulously in line with EU law. I see this insurance given by Minister Besson as a very positive development," she said.

Her remarks appeared to relate to the future conduct of the French authorities and not to the measures they have taken since July when Sarkozy announced his crackdown on Gypsy immigrants – EU citizens – from Romania and Bulgaria.

Since July the French have demolished scores of Gypsy encampments and expelled nearly 1,000 Roma, attracting strong criticism from the Vatican, the United Nations, human rights groups and leading opposition figures in France. The Sarkozy policy has also split his own cabinet but has been cheered by the extreme right across Europe.

"The commission has let the French off the hook. It has failed to do its job and it is setting a precedent for other countries," said Claude Moraes, a Labour MEP on the parliament's civil liberties committee. "France's actions are illegal – pure and simple. It is a sad indictment of this commission that it has failed to stand up for the rule of law in the face of a large EU member state. President Sarkozy must be made accountable for this racist policy. The European commission should be using all the tools available to bring France into line with EU law."

Last week, Reding and two other European commissioners raised strong doubts about the French government's conduct but delayed any conclusive verdict on the Sarkozy policy. She had been expected to go much further yesterday.

Barroso has been repeatedly charged with failing to stand up to the big EU member states when it matters. The decision to back down over the Roma row reinforced those views.

"It is common knowledge that France is contravening EU law. The European commission must stop sitting on its hands. It must publish its initial analysis," said Hélène Fautre, a French Green MEP.

The commissioners raised doubts about the French conduct in an internal document last week which it refuses to publish.

In his speech, Barroso said EU "governments must respect human rights, including those of minorities. Racism and xenophobia have no place in Europe. On such sensitive issues, when a problem arises, we must all act with responsibility. I make a strong appeal not to reawaken the ghosts of Europe's past."

The half-hour speech, outlining his priorities for the year ahead but containing scant new initiatives, was preceded by a farcical failed attempt to prevent MEPs playing truant in Strasbourg and guarantee a full house. Parliamentary leaders abandoned a scheme to fine MEPs who did not show up after being accused of Stalinism and infantilism.

Tonight social democrats, liberals, and Greens are trying to agree on a common formula that could command a wafer-thin majority while denouncing the French. The resolution goes to a vote on Thursday. While the resolution has only verbal force, it would represent an unusual blow to French prestige, with the European parliament sitting in Strasbourg in France condemning its host government.

Pierre Lellouche, the French Europe minister, said he found "the statements by members of the European parliament about France's policy on the Roma totally excessive and unfair".

In mid-July a 22-year-old Rom or Gypsy was shot dead by police in central France, sparking a riot and the ransacking of a police station by a crowd of around 50.

President Nicolas Sarkozy promptly announced a crackdown, targeting the Roma population from the Balkans, estimated at around 15,000.

Some 300 "illegal" Gypsy encampments were to be demolished, any Roma from Bulgaria or Romania with criminal records in France were to be expelled, and others – the majority – were to be encouraged to leave "voluntarily" by signing statements in return for a flight to their native countries and 300 euros for adults and 100 euros for children.

More than 900 have been deported since Sarkozy's announcement on July 28, bringing the total this year to more than 8,000.

Other countries are encouraged. The mayor of Rome has announced plans to demolish scores of Gypsy camps. The Italian government supports a hard line. Sweden and Denmark have been quietly deporting Roma who are EU citizens. Germany is in the process of expelling 12,000 Roma from Kosovo, most whom arrived as refugees from the Kosovo war in 1999 or who were since born in Germany.

ROMANI REFLECTS ON FRANCE'S DEPORTATION OF ROMANI

FROM ROMA VIRTUAL NETWORK

European Voice: A Romanian Roma reflects on France's deportation of Romani

Thursday, September 9, 2010 6:05 AM

I miss the EU already

BY COSMINA NOVACOVICI

09.09.2010

 The sudden collapse of the European Union in the summer months of 2010 took many by surprise. Although the writing was perhaps on the wall, I don't think I expected the death of the Union to come quite so quickly. Now that we know that the Union makes laws in the field of human rights that it has no intention of enforcing, it is for all intents and purposes gone for the vast majority of Europeans (“A policy in search of a defence”, 2-8 September).

Looking back on the Union, there will be many things I will miss. I remember with great hope the promise of EU citizenship, included in the Maastricht treaty. What would it mean for us Europeans? The future seemed all ahead of us. I recall how, following the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union made a major law banning racial discrimination. I remember how, in the wake of the Austria crisis in 2000, the Union took on new powers in the form of Treaty Article 7 to take action against an EU member state that departed from the fundamental common values of the Union. And I remember that in 2003 the Commission explained that these powers might be invoked when “the first signs of, for instance, racist or xenophobic policies will have become visible”.

Now we know it is all gone, a Goliath edifice brought crashing down by David, in the form of the French president. My village in south-western Romania is filling up with former Europeans. Of course, the statements by Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, and good-willed MEPs are welcome, but without a vigorous, public, institutional response, they are like so much hair growing on a corpse.

Of course, we Romani Europeans are not the only people who have noticed the disappearance of the EU. There are many who have waited for this moment eagerly. Take, for instance, the Czech media and public officials who suddenly in August began calling Czech Roma “foreigners”. Or the Hungarian politicians who began last week calling for a round-up of Roma into camps. Or the Italian moves to redouble the destruction of Romani housing and seek limitations of the free movement of Roma. These have always wondered whether the EU's law is Law, or ‘law'. And now they know and are happy.

In fact, we all know. A government that makes laws it has no intention of enforcing is not a government. And the laws it makes are not really laws.

We Europeans are better attuned than some people think at knowing exactly what the rules are. For a time, we lived under the happy delusion that the EU was a law-making force, intent on upholding the values it proclaimed, and enforcing the rules it made to support these values. Now that the EU is gone, racist forces all over Europe know their day has come.

Can the Union revive itself? It has on previous occasions, in other scenarios. But that would involve a vigorous institutional response, meaning the initiation of legal proceedings against member states that contravene EU law. This would need to be done publicly – we Europeans need to know. Otherwise, may the Union rest in peace, its former glory honoured for the hope it briefly gave us.

From:
Cosmina Novacovici
Banloc, Timis County
Romania

 http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ROMANI WOMEN: THE OTHER WOMEN

International Congress of Romani women: The other women

08/09/2010 -
From DROM KOTAR MESTIPEN ROMANI ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN
we inform you that on October, 8, 9 and 10 the International Congress of Romani women: The other women will take place in Barcelona .

This Congress is committed to responding to the dream of working with all Romani women in the creation of a dialogical and transformative space to eradicate all the difficulties that we, as Romani women, face. Frequently, we suffer a triple exclusion for being women, for being Romà and for not having academic qualifications. If we talk and put together our efforts we can contribute to overcome these inequalities.

With this congress we especially pretend to give voice to all Romani women without academic qualification that usually do not participate in the main discussion and decision forums.

All the information related to the conference is already available in the following webpage: http://dromkotar.wordpress.com. You may find all the related information in it as well as the process to receive a grant.

We also want to inform you that all the guidelines to work with all women on the topics of the Conference are available from now until its beginning. Thus, it will be easy to promote the direct participation of all the incoming women and to start previous discussions to the conference in each of the territories.

The main idea is that we can share online all the previous conclusions to the conference in a platform that we designed. You can get access to it through the Congress webpage. Those of you interested on participating in this platform please send to us an e-mail and the password will be forwarded to you. Thank you to it, we all can prepare the working groups and discussions of the Congress. We are sure that these discussions will change the current social policy and they will improve the situation of our people in Europe .

We encourage you to disseminate this congress among all the women of your territory you know and to organize big groups of participants. Any woman interested to come should have the opportunity to do it. Please, extend this information to all of your social networks in order to be a before-and-after in our history. We all win.

Bear in mind that the deadline to get registered ends on September, 24th as well as the grant application process.

We look forward to meeting you all in Barcelona !

To anything you need, please do not hesitate to contact us,

Sincerely,

Ana Contreras Fernandez
President Drom Kotar Mestipen - Romani Association of Women

HOLOCAUST TASK FORCE

07 SEPT .2010

ITF Chair's statement on the situation of the Roma in Europe

As the Chair of an organization dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust and the victims of genocide during the Second World War, I am deeply troubled to see the Roma subjected to racial prejudice, hate crimes, expulsions, and even in some cases murder.

I condemn these practices and call on all governments to protect the rights of this vulnerable minority, whose communities still suffer from their persecution and genocide under Nazi rule.

In December 2009, ITF Member Countries unanimously pledged to "prevent discrimination against the Roma and protect the Roma communities", and with that I urge us all to continue such efforts and to defend the civil and human rights of the Roma in the countries in which they live.
________________________________________________________
We are very glad to receive this statement.  To learn more about the Holocaust Task Force, please visit their website.
http://www.holocausttaskforce.org/

COMMENTS AND SPAM

Well, for quite awhile I've been wondering why we got so few comments on the blog.  Today I ran across a spam file stuffed with comments.

For some time we were receiving dozens of spam published daily in the comment section.  These were sexual ads or sales pitches for investment firms or insurance companies.  We deleted these ads after a reader complained.   WE DID NOT DELETE ANY COMMENTS WHICH WERE NOT SALES/SCAM SPAN, and added spam block to the blog. We didn't realize it would prevent MOST comments from coming through.

So, the matter has been taken care of ; hopefully now we will all see the comments sent in.

I apologize to anyone who didn't get their comments publish and encourage you to send more.

And to anonymous in Czech Republic---it would be good to link blogs.  Please email me at
www.punkaheron@yahoo.com

Nais tukay

PROTESTS IN FRANCE

FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

Thousands protest deportations of Gypsy immigrants in France


Authorities say 77,000 protesters hit the streets in 130 towns across France in opposition to Sarkozy's program to dismantle illegal Roma camps.

September 04, 2010
By Devorah Lauter, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Paris — With the fast beat of Gypsy music rousing the crowd over loudspeakers, thousands marched in Paris and other cities Saturday to protest the French government's deportations of Roma immigrants in the name of crime prevention.

Police said 77,000 protesters, led by left-leaning political parties and human rights organizations, hit the streets in 130 towns across France in opposition to President Nicolas Sarkozy's program to dismantle illegal Roma camps. As part of his new security policy, nearly 1,000 Roma have been sent back to Bulgaria and Romania since the end of July

AND THE BEAT GOES ON

FROM EUOBSERVER.COM

French Roma policy finds support among the far right


BY HONOR MAHONY

03/09/2010 - France's policy of expelling Roma to Romania and Bulgaria has attracted a storm of criticism at home and abroad from human rights groups and churches but has found support among some far-right politicians.

Philip Claeys, one of two MEPs from the far-right Flemish party Vlaams Belang, said he wants to defend "French policy concerning Roma."

"The dismantling of illegal camps, the struggle against petty crime, criminality and prostitution, and the expulsion of foreigners with no legal earnings are perfectly legitimate in a democratic constitutional state," said the Belgian euro-deputy in a statement Thursday (2 September).

Getting rid of the Roma camps puts an end to "public order disturbance," he continued.

France's own far-right National Front also agrees with the deportations. Its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen described the situation as "a problem caused by the European Union opening the borders between European countries."

The statements come in response to France's intention to destroy 300 Roma camps and send their occupants back to Romania and Bulgaria.

Meanwhile, the Irish Times reports that Hungary's far-right Jobbik party, which has three seats in the European Parliament and came third (with 17%) in the country's June elections, has unveiled an initiative calling for "anti-social" Roma in Hungary to be placed in special camps.

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona called for the compulsory education of Roma children in boarding schools while Jobbik MEP Csanad Szegedi said "public order zones" for gypsies deemed to be anti-social should be set up.  (Photo from Flickr)

"We would force these families out of their dwellings. Then, yes, we would transport these families to public order protection camps," Mr Szegedi said.

"At these camps, there would be a chance to return to civilised society. Those who abandon crime, make sure their children attend school and participate in public works programmes, they can re-integrate," he added. Jobbik hopes to make big gains in October's local elections.

The situation of the Roma - the EU's largest ethnic minority - has been the subject of intense debate since France began its expulsions some four weeks ago.

It is part of a general security clampdown announced at the end of the July by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who for the first time also explicitly linked immigration and crime.

Beyond the far right, the expulsions policy has also found some sympathy among the eurosceptic right. British MEP Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party says that while what Mr Sarkozy is doing appears to "be a bit distasteful" his actions go to the "heart" of the relationship between member states and the EU.

"We accept that these people are badly discriminated in their own country, but from 2014 there will be no possibility for Sarkozy to send them home, because they will have total rights of movement, all the transitional arrangements will have ended," he said in a debate on Thursday hosted by EUobserver.

Paris' policy, which has seen almost 1,000 Roma returned and over 100 camps emptied, has been strongly criticised by human rights NGOs, a UN panel, the Catholic Church, and politicians across the spectrum in France for targetting a single ethnic group.

After weeks of silence, the European Commission on Thursday let it be known that it had doubts about the legality of the policy under EU freedom of movement rules.

EUROPE-----EAST AND WEST

RESPONSE to Bajram Haliti:
Stop To Deportation Of Roma From The West!
Saturday, September 4, 2010 6:41 AM

From: "Bernard Sullivan"

Dear Bajram

Congratulations on your excellent speech which I read with great interest.

I hope that the moves to bring Sarkozy to the Hague are successful. Such an achievement would be a great deterrent to other leaders who may be considering introducing their own brand of "Sarkozy Cleansing".

Of course, as you know, Sarkozy is not by any means the only leader or even minister who should be called to account. The present French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, when the UN's Special Representative in Kosovo, was responsible for placing many Romani families on toxic waste, where it was inevitable that they would become poisoned. He then broke his own promise to move them to safety within 45 days, saying that as a doctor himself, he understood the meaning of lead poisoning. I hope that you and those like you, will be able to draw attention to his particular involvement in the crisis for Romani people today.

The EU must now set about tackling something that it, as well as the many non-EU countries, have so far almost totally failed to do. It must now set up procedures to pro-actively manage in a balanced, informed, educated and humane way, the integration of all its citizens, to provide equal opportunites in education, housing, healthcare and employment under the protection of the same rule of law for all. This is a process that can no longer be ignored. Like most problems, it will not improve through neglect. The EU, through the implentation of legislation and education must lead every citizen of the EU to change their behaviour and attitudes. This must include changes among the Romani people themselves. Because attitudes of mutual suspicion and intolerance have become so ingrained, such fundamental changes will take time and require much investment and effort to achieve the goal of a universal society where each respects the other for their positive contributions and indeed their differences.

Unfortunately, divisive negative attitudes in society both against minorities and indeed by minorities against the majority population, have become part of our history and culture. Dangerously, they are being re-enforced by biased and bigotted media sources, striving to increase circulation by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Sadly, such attitudes are often unwittingly strengthened by the elitism and attitudes of superiority reflected in the teaching of many religions.

The most difficult challenge of all to overcome is because such attitudes are contained very much within our genes. Through evolution, the human being has become the most agressive predator on the planet, where a sign of weakness seen in one can so easily become a cue for agression in another. With due knowledge of our inherited nature, we must manage the future with huge determination and ongoing effort.

Bernard Sullivan

Could I please use this opportunity to mention the following two petitions . . .

Romani people throughout Europe are once more under serious threat.

In Kosovo, even their children are being poisoned.

Please sign and circulate both these petitions.

"STOP THE EXPULSIONS OF ROMS" - "SAVE LEAD-POISONED CHILDREN OF KOSOVO"
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/Save-Children-Dying-From-Lead-Poisoning

http://secure.avaaz.org/fr/roms_stop_aux_expulsions/?fp

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The petition to stop expulsions of Roma/Sinti is in French.  You can translate it using Google tool.
Thanks

THOUSANDS PROTEST FRENCH CRACKDOWN ON GYPSIES

The turn out at today's Europe wide demonstations in support of Roma/Sinti is good news in this bleak landscape.
Here in the US we are trying to flood the French Ambassador with messages of protest to Sarkozy's attacks on the Romani people.
I will be publishing contact information today.
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THOUSANDS PROTEST FRENCH CRACKDOWN ON GYPSIES

JAMEY KEATEN,
Associated Press Writer

PARIS – Thousands of people marched in Paris and around France on Saturday to protest expulsions of Gypsies and other new security measures adopted by President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.

Protesters blew whistles and beat drums in the capital, the largest demonstration among those in at least 135 cities and towns across France and elsewhere in Europe. Human rights and anti-racism groups, labor unions and leftist political parties were taking part in the protests.

They accuse Sarkozy of stigmatizing minority groups like Gypsies and seeking political gain with a security crackdown. They also say he is violating French traditions of welcoming the oppressed, in a country that is one of the world's leading providers of political asylum.

The protests mark the first show of public discontent since the conservative Sarkozy, a former hardline interior minister, announced new measures to fight crime in late July.

Sarkozy said Gypsy camps would be "systematically evacuated." His interior minister and other officials said last week that about 1,000 Roma have been given small stipends and flown home since then.

For years, Sarkozy has used his image as a tough, law-and-order politician to win political support. Sarkozy has linked Roma to crime, saying their camps are sources of prostitution and child exploitation. The latest moves by Sarkozy came after violence between police and youth in a suburban Grenoble housing project and other clashes in a traveling community in the Loire Valley.

Sarkozy also said naturalized citizens who threaten the lives of police officers should lose their citizenship — and his leftist critics slammed that proposal as anti-constitutional and evocative of nationalist measures during France's collaborationist past in the Vichy regime during World War II.

"Mr. Sarkozy is there to stand for the Constitution, not to trample it," said Jean-Paul Dubois, president of France's Human Rights League. "So we consider this situation extremely dangerous, that's why we are here."

Paris police said some 12,000 people took part in the protest in the capital and that no violence took place. Organizers estimated that 50,000 people took part in the capital — half of the total nationwide.

Small groups of Gypsies took part, including women in flowered skirts, sandals or wearing looping earrings, and men in jeans and gold caps on teeth in the corners of their smiles. But they were far outnumbered by left-leaning political parties, labor unions, and dozens of activist groups like those supporting illegal immigrants or gays.

"It warms the heart to see so many people out here. Fortunately, there are nice people in the world," said Delia Romanes, walking behind a banner of a 17-year-old Gypsy circus that she heads in northeastern Paris. She said the government has recently sought to strip its performers of their work papers.

Other Roma without proper residency rights were more fearful.

"We are afraid. We aren't prepared for this," said David Anghel, a 24-year-old mason from Romania, who has lived in France for eight years. Holding the banner of a Gypsy-support association, he said his wife had been served with an order to leave their camp in Fleury-Merogis, south of Paris, about 10 days ago. They fear police will come to expel them in the next few days.

Similar peaceful protests took place outside French embassies elsewhere in Europe. In Belgrade, Serbia, dozens of Gypsies chanted anti-racist slogans and held banners calling for an end to the expulsions from France.

In Rome, Marcello Zuinisi, a Tuscany-based Gypsy leader, sought to remind the French about their "liberte, egalite, fraternite" motto: "We want those values to be respected today."

In an open letter to Sarkozy published Saturday in Le Monde daily, celebrated French-Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun — whom Sarkozy inducted into France's Legion d'Honneur in 2007 — said he felt the proposal about stripping citizenship had "threatened a little bit — or at least weakened — my French nationality."

Polls have shown the French are split about the policy of sending home the Gypsies to eastern Europe — mainly Romania — though slightly more favor it than oppose it.

France's recent and highly publicized crackdown has drawn criticism from the United Nations and the Vatican, among other institutions, and has exposed dissent within Sarkozy's own government. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he briefly considered resigning in the uproar over the policy.

Associated Press writers Daniele De Bernardin in Rome and Jovana Gec in Belgrade contributed to this report.

ENGLAND

AFRAID OVER VIOLENT GANG ATTACKS

FROM BBC NEWSBEAT


Friday, 3 September 2010 06:18 UK

By Anthony Baxter

Reports of violent gang attacks are spreading fear in some of Britain's traveller communities.

They include claims of groups of around 20 Polish and Irish men, all armed, attacking travellers, as well as stories of children being abducted and held hostage in return for money and jewellery.

While filming a group of Roma gypsies for a documentary, BBC Two's Revealed Extra I had rare access to young people living in the communities.

I witnessed panic after hearing terrifying accounts of attacks on travellers and gypsies.

Megan, a Roma gypsy from near Cambridge, said she knew some of the alleged victims.

Continue reading the main story Some relations we know, it's happened to them. It's really bad.

Megan, Roma gypsy: "The stories have been passed around. We've heard about it, and some relations we know, it's happened to them. It's really bad."

Megan and her family have now moved from the site they've lived on for the last two years because of the fear of being attacked.

She explained: "Apparently there are a couple of gangs going round targeting traveller families and taking all their possessions.

"I've never known it to happen in my lifetime, it's very shocking."

Another traveller, who wanted to remain anonymous, said she'd heard of two separate cases of children being sexually assaulted - one of them supposedly in Luton.

Facebook 'warnings'

The community has been informing each other about the attacks through social networking sites.

The creator of a Facebook group set up to warn travellers said she knew a family who were badly beaten after handing over money and jewellery.

"I know for a fact it was done just over four weeks ago," she wrote.

"The robbers even made their 14-year-old grandson watch as they beat his grandparents."

Pea, 19, lives on a site near Bedford. He questions just how much of what he's heard is true, but says he does believe the attacks are happening.

"I've heard there are a lot of bad people going around taking things they shouldn't, doing things they shouldn't."

The police are warning travellers to be vigilant, but say so far they've received no evidence to support any of the claims, and nobody has come forward to report any crimes.

The Gypsy Council said it was aware of the rumours, but hadn't heard of anything first-hand.

It wants travellers who have been attacked to come forward.

However, Pea told Revealed Extra that contacting the authorities wasn't the done thing in their communities.

"It's going to be over pretty soon," he said.

"They're going to walk into the wrong camp. I think they're going to sort it out their own way... whatever that is I don't know."

FRANCE AND THE E.U.

FROM OPEN SOCIETY

Reding on Roma: The Committed Commissioner


September 3, 2010
by Bernard Rorke

The statement by Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, on the situation of Roma in Europe is to be welcomed for its unequivocal and forthright commitment to Roma inclusion. It is a firm and eloquent rebuttal to criticisms that the Commission has remained silent in the wake of the crisis prompted by the actions taken against Roma by the French government. Her personal expression of regret that some of the rhetoric used in Member States of late has been "openly discriminatory and partly inflammatory" is a reminder of just how pervasive anti-Roma sentiment remains in Europe.

Protestations by the French that their actions in razing camps and repatriating Roma are neither racist nor discriminatory have cut little ice in the wider world. Such is the storm of criticism from right across the political spectrum, from religious and civic leaders across Europe, that for many, these actions have acquired the smear of turpitude. From within the French President’s own party, the policy was described as "turning disgraceful" and the camp evictions likened to World War II round-ups.

This latest tumult is but the incendiary tip of a deeply-rooted and long neglected social crisis of discrimination compounded by abject poverty that has been the plight of the Roma.

Ms. Reding’s offer that the Commission is prepared to initiate open, frank and honest dialogue with all Member States on how best to take on "our joint responsibility for Roma" came with a definite rider: that Member States "respect commonly agreed EU rules on free movement, nondiscrimination and the common values of the European Union, notably the respect for fundamental rights, including the rights of people belonging to minorities."

The participation of the Belgian EU presidency in the forthcoming informal September meeting called by the French of immigration ministers from the "big five" EU states will be important to ensure that the meeting does not live up to its prior billing as an "anti-Roma summit" in the wake of Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni’s declared intent to push for EU endorsement of automatic expulsion of Roma.

For many years, the Open Society Foundations have called for a comprehensive pan-European Roma strategy for inclusion at EU level. The Commission’s Communication in the wake of the 2nd EU Roma Summit last April marked the clearest declaration of intent to date. It openly recognized the need for a coordinated and coherent policy response that is proportionate to the scale of the problem. While the prime responsibility for policy measures to promote inclusion in employment, education, health and housing rests within Member States, the EU has a vital role to play. Reding’s offer that the European Commission "stands ready to act as a broker between Member States and to monitor and assess progress being made" needs to be acted upon.

The EU endorsement of "explicit but not exclusive targeting for Roma" made it possible for development funds to cover housing interventions in favor of marginalized communities, especially Roma. This is a very welcome step forward and the guiding principle of "explicit but not exclusive targeting" needs to be extended to policy and funding interventions in education, health and employment. To ensure that such measures actually make a difference to life chances in the slums and settlements for millions of Roma, the EU needs to go "beyond brokerage," set well-defined benchmarks, and devise a road-map for Roma inclusion.

The Fundamental Rights Agency should be mandated to conduct assessments across Member States, and the Commission should issue annual monitoring reports to accelerate progress, and identify and remedy the abject policy failures that blight so many lives. If the EU’s Platform for Roma Inclusion is to move beyond the realm of good intentions, it needs to be bolstered by a dedicated task force to coordinate, devise and drive policy, to set clear targets and rigorously monitor how European money is spent. There is an urgent need for profound and sustainable change, because the current situation is clearly unsustainable.

In blunt terms, as long as Roma face discrimination and deprivation in their own countries they will continue to migrate. Continued neglect in tackling, as Reding puts it, "the root causes leading Roma to abandon their homes and move across borders" comes at a high price. It creates a vacuum whereby the agenda can be set by right-wing radicals, racists and populists. Moral panics and heavy-handed security responses will not yield sound and sustainable policies for social cohesion and integration. If we are to remain, as Reding reminds us, "a Community of values and fundamental rights," all democrats need to remain very vigilant in the face of those who would make a mockery of these values and ride roughshod over fundamental rights.

ITALY

FROM ADNKRONOS INTERNATIONAL

Italy: Mayor moves to demolish Roma Gypsy camps


Rome, 1 Sept. (AKI) -

Illegal Roma Gypsy camps which have sprung up in the Italian capital will be razed to the ground starting next week, Rome's conservative mayor Gianni Alemanno said on Wednesday.

"The camps will begin to be closed down this week and checks carried out. We are talking about numerous camps that are very small, often with only five to ten residents, and which are frequently in extremely dangerous locations," Alemanno told state television Rai1.

"We need to help children and women, but it is equally clear that people who have arrived in Rome must be able to support and house themselves adequately, otherwise they have to leave," Alemanno, a former neo-Fascist, said.

Authorities in neighbouring France dismantled 128 camps and - controversially - deported 977 Roma Gypsies to Romanian and Bulgaria in August on security grounds, according to the government.

"The state must be able to keep its territory under control," said Alemanno, adding that France's policy of Roma deportations was "unconvincing and weak".

"A European strategy is needed to control the rate of immigration," he said.

Earlier this year, Alemanno demolished Rome's largest gypsy camp, the Casilino 900, which had 600 residents. The sprawling camp had existed for 40 years and was inhabited by people from the former Yugoslavia, as well as Italian gypsies.

The destruction of the Casilino 900 was part of Rome city council's so-called 'Nomad Plan' to demolish around 100 illegal, insanitary and unsafe camps around the capital and relocate 6,000 Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies, to 13 new or expanded locations on the outskirts of the Italian capital.

The 'Nomad Plan' has drawn criticism from rights groups including Amnesty International, who in a report said the plan would leave at least 1,000 people homeless, and would uproot Gypsies from their homes and communities.

Amnesty and other non-governmental organisations fear Rome's 'Nomad Plan' will be used as a blueprint for similar demolitions of Roma Gypsy camps in other Italian regions.

After a visit to the Casilino 900 camp Italian camps last year, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, expressed "serious concerns" about Italy's policies towards its Gypsy minority, whom he said faced "a persistent climate of intolerance." "

There are an estimated 150,000 Gypsies in Italy, nearly half of whom were born in the country and have Italian citizenship. Between 12,000 and 15,000 Roma live in Rome, according to Amnesty International.

Tens of thousands of Roma Gypsies have entered Italy in the past few years since Slovakia and Romania joined the EU, and are being blamed by many Italians for much of the recent rise in crime rates.

EUROPE

Roma need a break from the vicious circle


By Jan Jařab and Judith Kumin

01/09/2010
A 'not in my backyard' policy will have little effect, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights writes.

In the last days of August, while many Europeans were still on their summer holidays, a storm was brewing about the treatment of some of Europe's most marginalised people. Hundreds of Bulgarian and Romanian Roma were rounded up in France and put on planes for Sofia and Bucharest. The French government's action was linked to an incident that involved French Travellers (gens de voyage), not east European Roma. However, France has framed the problem as one of irregular migration, to be discussed at a meeting of selected EU interior ministers on 6 September in Paris.

No one knows exactly how many European citizens are of Roma origin. Accurate figures are not available, as countries generally do not gather population information based on ethnicity. The Council of Europe estimates that in the wider Europe, there are more than ten million Roma and related minorities – including the French Travellers, who do not consider themselves Roma. The largest numbers of Roma within the EU, according to the Council of Europe's estimates, are in Romania and Bulgaria. Outside the EU, there are significant Roma populations in Albania and the countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Despite popular perception of Roma as ‘nomads', only a small minority practise an itinerant lifestyle today. The westward movement of Roma from central and eastern Europe does not generally result from ‘nomadism'. Mostly it involves previously sedentary Roma who leave their home countries because of socio-economic conditions and widespread discrimination in employment, housing and education.

Labelling migration as either ‘forced' or ‘voluntary' is difficult in the best of circumstances. This is particularly so in the case of the Roma. In their countries of origin, many Roma live in conditions of acute poverty, in segregated villages or neighbourhoods. Under these circumstances, it is hard to categorise their migration as purely voluntary. This applies even more obviously to Roma from the territory of the former Yugoslavia, many of whom were forced out by inter-ethnic hostilities.

Although Roma from outside the EU (for instance, from Kosovo) frequently apply for asylum in the EU, this option is generally not open to the EU's own Roma, as most member states do not consider asylum applications from EU nationals. This explains in part why Roma from Hungary and the Czech Republic have applied for asylum in Canada. At the same time, it is clear that the full range of problems faced by Roma across Europe cannot be addressed through asylum – although that may be necessary for some. But neither can they be resolved through security crackdowns, attempts to restrict free movement or xenophobic political discourse that stigmatises a whole ethnic group.

With open borders in the European Union, a ‘not in my backyard' policy will have little effect. The EU and its member states need to mobilise to support their Roma citizens, especially the children and youth. All the available legal and financial instruments should be used to guarantee the full enjoyment of their economic, social and cultural rights. Until and unless there is such a commitment – and energetic implementation of socially inclusive policies at a national level – the vicious spiral of crackdowns and expulsions will continue to inflame societal divisions and aggravate the deep-rooted problems faced by Europe's Roma: stigma, discrimination and desperate poverty.

Jan Jařab is the regional representative for Europe in the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Judith Kumin is the director of the UNHCR Bureau for Europe.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2010/08/roma-need-a-break-from-the-vicious-circle-/68776.aspx

FROM COURAGE CAMPAIGN

EXCERPT FROM COURAGE CAMPAIGN.

complete article--

http://www.couragecampaign.org/FightBack

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee -- a likely front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 -- is calling for the religious right to "turn this nation back to God, as Jesus is our only hope."

Yes, Huckabee actually said that in a video criticizing Judge Vaughn Walker's historic Prop 8 decision and imploring right-wingers to show up in Sacramento this weekend at "The Call" -- a mega-event designed to rally the religious right in response to the court ruling striking down Prop 8. Ten years ago, "The Call" event drew more than 400,000 people to Washington, D.C.

For Americans concerned about the separation of church and state, this leading presidential contender's words are harrowing. But what's even scarier is the man behind "The Call" that Huckabee is promoting: Lou Engle.

Apparently Huckabee is not disturbed by his promotion of Engle -- a man who reacted to the legalization of same-sex marriage in California in 2008 by calling for "martyrs" to become "God's Avengers of Blood" to stop the "homosexual agenda" at any cost, warning that:

"What happened to California will release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam, a spirit of lawlessness and anarchy. And a sexual insanity will be unleashed into the Earth."

The marriage equality movement is strongly supported by people of faith and supports the freedom to worship. But we will not condone religious fanaticism bordering on an incitement to violence

MORE ON FRANCE

FROM THE INDEPENDENT
Photo from AFP/GETTY

Why Sarkozy went to war on the Roma


The President's crackdown was meant to strengthen his grip on power, but could split his government instead

By John Lichfield

Thursday, 2 September 2010

The scene is a piece of wasteland on the edge of Saint Etienne in central France. A scrap of land, wedged between a cemetery and a rubbish dump, is home to 100 people, 40 of them children.

A band of Roma, immigrants of ambiguous legality from Romania, has lived here since May in a jumble of cars, vans and makeshift shelters. The town council has provided a row of chemical toilets, two water taps and one rubbish skip – five star luxury compared to some of the Roma camps now scattered across France (but also across Belgium, Germany and Italy).

At dawn, the police arrive. They have documents signed by the local prefect. The camp is illegal. It must be cleared. No one protests very much. None of the Roma speaks more than a few words of French in any case. Some – not all – of the Roma are arrested. They are European Union citizens guaranteed the right of "freedom of movement" within the EU (with certain ill-defined limits). They abruptly face a choice between forced expulsion from France for "threatening public order" and "voluntary" repatriation to Romania with a €300 (£248) grant.

How were the Roma "threatening public order"? According to the French state, to occupy a scrap of wasteland that no one wants is a threat to public order. (Some French courts disagree).

Marie-Pierre Manevy, a local activist for the support group Reséau Solidarité Roms, points out that several requests had been made for a legal Roma campsite in Saint Etienne, but that all were ignored. "They weren't bothering anyone," she said. "The only reason to clear the camp was to obey President Sarkozy's orders... In truth, no one cares much what happens to the Roma. People don't care about them either way."

The scene has been repeated scores of times across France in the last month as President Nicolas Sarkozy (himself the son of an eastern European immigrant) wages his unlikely war against one of Europe's most destitute, mysterious and problematic peoples.

In truth, the anti-Roma campaign has been going on for much, much longer (and not just in France). What is new is that, in the last month, Roma-bashing has been turned into a public spectacle on President Sarkozy's explicit orders. Just short of 1,000 Roma have been expelled from France in the month of August. According to the official figures, 11,000 Roma were also expelled from France last year – in other words almost as many, month by month – without anyone much noticing (or, as Ms Manevy says, caring).

The campaign against the Roma was abruptly declared a state priority by Mr Sarkozy in late July. Dismantling Roma camps and expelling their inhabitants suddenly became the subject of proud and apocalyptic comments by Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister (Mr Sarkozy's protégé and a childhood friend).

One month later, President Sarkozy's anti-Roma campaign has been denounced by Catholic bishops in France, criticised (vaguely) by the Pope, questioned by the European Commission and condemned by two former centre-right French prime ministers. All have been disturbed, not so much by the campaign itself, as by the systematic stigmatisation of an ethnic group by official government policy and pronouncement.

Worryingly for President Sarkozy, signs of disquiet are increasingly apparent within the senior ranks of his own government. In the last few days, Mr Sarkozy's own prime minister, François Fillon, has hinted that he disapproves of the crude links between foreigners and crime that are being made in his government's name. Mr Fillon is therefore unlikely to be prime minister for very long but he probably knew that before he spoke. Senior ministers recruited from the left and centre, including the foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner and defence minister, Hervé Morin, have also expressed reservations about the xenophobic tone of the government's pronouncements in the last few days.

President Sarkozy shows no signs, yet, of being willing to back down. The government plans to pass new legislation to make it easier to expel Roma. This could put Paris on a collision course with the European Commission, which has already summoned two French ministers to Brussels this week to explain themselves. As EU citizens, the Roma have a right travel to France but not to settle for more than three months. It is often impossible to know when they first came to France. Aware of the rules, they move across EU borders as the deadline approaches.

Under EU law, Roma (and any other EU nationals) can also be expelled as a "threat to public order". This is the preferred solution of Mr Hortefeux and Mr Sarkozy. In the last week, a court in Lille has twice rejected the government's contention that an illegal Roma camp is, in itself, a threat to public order.

The French government therefore plans to change national law to create new grounds for expulsions, including "repeated theft or aggressive begging". On Monday, Mr Hortefeux said that minor criminal offences by "Romanian citizens" had increased by 259 per cent in the Paris area in the last 18 months.

There are 12,000,000 Roma in eastern Europe, scattered across the frontiers of Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Hungary. Their origins are disputed but they are believed to be the descendants of pre-medieval wanderers from northern India. They live, for the most part, as third-class citizens in shanty towns of deep squalor. Their old gypsy wandering culture was forbidden in the Communist era. Even now, only a handful have tried to test their new "wandering" rights under EU law by travelling to western Europe.

There are, nonetheless, said to be 25,000 Romanian and Bulgarian Roma in Belgium alone, and an estimated 15,000 in France. They are hardly a serious threat but they are, to many people, a highly visible nuisance. Many of the Roma beg, sometimes aggressively. A few steal. All EU countries expel Roma when they can. Only President Sarkozy's France has decided to turn the persecution of the Roma into a political pageant. Why?

In a speech in Grenoble in July, the President went out of his way to make several dubious connections between crime (which is, overall, declining in France) and foreigners. Illegal Roma camps would no longer be tolerated, he said. At the same time, French nationality would be stripped from people of "foreign origin" who made life-threatening attacks on the police.

The apparent occasion for the President's anti-Roma rhetoric was a rural riot in central France after a young gypsy had been shot dead by a gendarme. The unrest, which lasted for two days, involved travelling families of Romany origin. None were Roma immigrants from eastern Europe. All had been French for countless generations.

Various explanations have been given for the President's sudden interest in the problem. Opposition politicians suggested he was trying to change the subject of national conversation after a July dominated by allegations that his presidential campaign in 2007 was illegally financed. Elysée officials said it was part of a longer-term strategy to prioritise security and immigration in the 2012 election before they could be exploited by a resurgent far-right.

President Sarkozy will take some satisfaction from the opinion polls. They suggest that over 60 per cent of voters approve of the forced dismantlement of illegal Roma encampments. He will also be delighted that the campaign has caused embarrassment to a centre-left opposition which he loves to portray as elitist and out of touch on immigration and law and order issues.

The Socialist Party leader, Martine Aubry, accused Mr Sarkozy at the weekend of bringing "shame" on France. The government then revealed that, as mayor of Lille, she had pressed earlier this summer for the removal of two illegal Roma camps in her own area. All the same, a policy cynically intended to strengthen Mr Sarkozy's weakening hold on power now threatens to split his own centre-right movement. His party's annual conference was dominated this week by arguments between supporters of the Sarko hard-line and those who share the distaste of the Prime Minister, Mr Fillon. A radical cabinet reshuffle is expected within months. The "Roma" issue threatens to become the litmus test of who will be asked – or willing – to serve in a new, more aggressively right-wing government for the last 20 months of Mr Sarkozy's presidency.

France's Roma in numbers...

15,000 Estimated number of Roma living in France

1,000 Number of Roma expelled from France in August.

300 Amount, in euros, offered to Roma as a grant for their "voluntary repatriation" to Romania.

60 per cent Proportion of French voters who back Sarkozy's tactics.

ARCHBISHOP RESIGNS

FROM CATHOLIC CULTURE.ORG

Vatican official steps down after stirring debate on French immigration policy

September 01, 2010

A Vatican official who had strongly denounced the French government’s campaign to expel illegal Gypsy residents has resigned.

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto stepped down from his post as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants, just a few days after he had charged that the French government was violating human rights with its crackdown on illegal Gypsy immigrants.

Vatican official denied that the archbishop’s resignation was a result of the recent controversy. Father Ciro Benedettini, the deputy director of the Vatican press office, said that the Italian archbishop had begun planning his retirement “a while ago,” because of his advancing age.

Archbishop Marchetto is 70 years old: 5 years short of the normative retirement age for bishops. He has served as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants since November 2001.

The protests that greeted Archbishop Marchetto's criticism of French policies were exacerbated by one clear misinterpretation of his words. Some angry protesters said that the archbishop had compared the French immigration crackdown to Nazi racial policies. In fact, in calling for compassion for the Roma people, the archbishop had made the factual observation that Gypsies, like European Jews, were targeted for extinction by Hitler's regime.

DESPITE FREE BORDERS, ROMA ARE STILL EUROPE'S OUTCASTS

 FROM CROSSCUT.COM
Thursday, September 2, 2010

A Seattle journalist, who is making a documentary on these fascinating people, describes their lives and why politicians like President Sarkozy keep scoring points by kicking them out of their countries.

http://crosscut.com/2010/08/31/culture-ethnicity/20105/Despite-free-borders,-Roma-
(Gypsies)-are-still-Europe-s-outcasts/?pagejump=1
(This link will take you directly to the article.  At the very end is access to the video.  There are two excepts and  both are very good.  The direct route to the Compton Report doesn't seem to work)

By Jim Compton
August 31, 2010.
Photo by Jim Compton

Beg in Paris, or starve in Romania? That is the choice faced by many European Roma (Gypsies). Trapped by poverty in their homelands in Eastern Europe, Roma can head west, which offers the allure of making a tiny living in the street. An American friend in Bucharest fought bravely to keep a promising Roma girl in school, but the youngster dropped out to go to Paris and beg. That offered a brighter economic future than anything she could expect in Romania.

Now the French are kicking Roma out by the thousands, sending them home with one-way tickets and 300 Euros. The deportations, which go on all the time, become headlines when politicians like President Nicolas Sarkozy want to court right-wing votes. It’s easy to demonize illegal aliens (though Roma are legal). Across Europe xenophobes, racists, and nativists have donned white hoods to evict them.

Let’s get our terms straight. Many, but far from all of them, choose to be called Roma, their name in their own language (Romany). Among themselves they are likely to use Tzigan, Gitanos, or Zingaro, the words for “Gypsy” in Romanian, or French, or Italian. Academic literature calls them Roma-Gypsies.

I’ve spent many weeks with them over the last three years making a documentary about their problems and origins. A fair number live in tidy villages in the countryside, where the whole community may specialize as metalworkers, musicians, or spoon-carvers. There used to be bands of bear-trainers. But hundreds of thousands live in slums, amid squalor so terrible it is hard to convey. We visited a slum outside Braila, a port city in Romania, and found several blocks of houses sharing a single water tap, sewage in the streets, and smoke from a burning dump wafting through.

There are 9 million Roma in Europe, nearly the population of Belgium. Two million live in Romania alone. There are Roma from Bulgaria to Lithuania and Wales. Few Europeans (or Americans) understand who they are. A distinct ethnic group, they migrated to Europe from India about 1,000 years ago. That’s been confirmed by linguistics, and now genetics. They still speak a language called Romany based in Sanskrit, with hundreds of words in common with Hindi and Rajasthani. They rarely marry outside their tribes, and their gene pool is remarkably intact.

What’s happening in France currently is the logical consequence of the EU's ensuring free passage of peoples. When borders to the west were thrown open in 1989, Roma rushed to Western Europe. Most are employed in low-wage jobs, if they work at all, and live in vast slums in Madrid, Paris, Rome, and Milan. They are socially marginalized in every way. The host countries hector them constantly. The BBC filmed raids in Madrid where cops simply evicted Roma from shantytowns, and then bulldozed their shacks into splinters.

A thousand years after they left India, Roma are still strangers in their adopted lands. They are the people Europe wants to go away.

It’s a tough issue, filled with moral ambiguity. You can’t talk about Roma without running afoul of somebody’s taboos. Don’t use the G word, even though they may use it themselves. And certainly don’t raise questions about crime or antisocial behavior, which is immediately labeled stereotyping. But it’s obvious that many Roma in Europe, if not most, live outside society’s rules, camping where they like, and engaging in criminal behavior.

They crowd the jails in disproportionate numbers. I filmed interviews in the notorious Jilava Prison, where Ceausescu kept his political prisoners, outside Bucharest. I talked to two pickpockets and a murderer, who all asked, “would you steal if your kids were hungry?”

Roma are not violent. Roma women are not promiscuous, but extremely chaste and protected, despite what they act like on the street. Roma love their children — and sometimes put them to work panhandling when as young as six or seven. Their kids are often betrothed at 12, sometimes married at 14 (although child marriages are declining), another custom that infuriates the locals.

Education statistics are appalling. Illiteracy probably reaches 50 percent in Balkan countries. They are so wary of census takers or social workers with clipboards that there are no reliable statistics. The Romanians counted 1 million, then published their estimate at 1.5 million, but everyone believes there are 2 million. Many have no official identity, which puts them into a vicious bureaucratic circle. No identity card, no work. No work, no home. No home, no identity card.

I haven’t met a European outside an NGO who didn’t express distaste, if not loathing, for Roma. A distinguished faculty member at the University of Bucharest raved at me, “you can’t possibly know what they are like.” A Lutheran cathedral expelled a man who came in to get out of the sun. We watched a border guard demand a bribe from a Roma driver entering the country from Bulgaria.

We brought a Roma girl to Seattle from Bucharest for a month in 2008. Her family is moderately successful, and she gets excellent grades. She attended Bush School here, and I think she was staggered by the prosperity and openness of America. She has finished high school now. It grieves me to think of the obstacles Claudia has ahead.

http://crosscut.com/2010/08/31/culture-ethnicity/20105/Despite-free-borders,-Roma-
(Gypsies)-are-still-Europe-s-outcasts/?pagejump=1


Jim Compton, who hosted "The Compton Report" on KING-TV for a decade, has had two Fulbright Fellowships to Romania.

FROM KOSOVO

Press Release - MASTERS OF HYPOCRISY PATRONIZING DEPORTED ROM
]Wednesday, September 1, 2010 2:29 AM
The following Press Release on behalf of Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation was issued today at 1115 CET.

PRESS RELEASE 1 September 2010

MASTERS OF HYPOCRISY PATRONIZING DEPORTED ROMA

Prince Karel VII von Schwarzenberg, Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic, and Dr. Bernard Kouchner, Foreign Minister of France, recently denounced the deportation of Roma (Gypsies) from France. The deportation of Roma was decided by French President Nicolas Sarkozy the end of July. About 8,300 Romanian and Bulgarian Romani (Gypsy) nationals have been expelled from France since the beginning of the year. Almost 10,000 were expelled in 2009.

Schwarzenberg opposed France’s deportation of Roma saying the decision was made on racial grounds and was contrary to the sprit and rules of the European Union.

Kouchner said he considered resigning over President Sarkozy’s policy of deporting Roma people. He didn’t.

In the eyes of Czech Roma and Sinti and in the experience of Kosovo Roma both men represent hypocrisy at its lowest level.

During WWII Schwarzenberg’s father Prince Karel VI used Jewish and Gypsy slave labor on his south Bohemia estates before the Germans introduced forced administration.

In 1999 as head of the UN in Kosovo, Kouchner placed almost 200 Romani refugee families in camps on highly toxic waste land promising them, Baroness Nicholson and myself that they would only be there for 45 days. He said that as a doctor he recognized the danger of heavy metal poisoning and if these Roma could not be returned to their homes he would take them abroad. Eleven years later, after 89 deaths (many attributed to a combination of malnutrition and lead poisoning) 140 families are still in these camps.

After WWII, from 1945 to 1948, Prince Karel VI continued to use slave labor on his returned estates. This time the slaves were German citizens of Czechoslovakia who were supposed to be deported in 1945. However, Schwarzenberg kept them detained in a confiscated Jewish manor adjoining his estates until the Communists forced him to flee in 1948.

In 2000 Kouchner’s UN medical team took blood tests of many Kosovars in the city of Mitrovica after several NATO troops were found to have lead poisoning. The highest lead levels (the highest in medical literature) were found among the Romani children in the UN camps Kouchner had placed on the tailing stands of the local lead mines. Kouchner’s UN medical team in a written report to him recommended immediate evacuation of the camps and medical treatment. Kouchner refused.

In the 1990s Prince Karel VII von Schwarzenberg, while President Havel’s chief of staff, received in restitution most of his father’s lands, castles, and Prague properties that had been confiscated in 1948 by the then Communist government. The return of these lands made Schwarzenberg the richest man in Czechoslovakia. Under Czech law the properties should not have been returned because during and after WWII the House of Schwarzenberg used slave labor on these estates.

In 1999 Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which Kouchner co-founded, was awarded the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. TIME magazine wrote that Kouchner was, “A man of fire, a warrior of peace, who invented the duty of international meddling.” Kouchner later approved “in the name of human rights“ the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In the Czech Republic a pig farm now stands on the very foundations of the WWII Lety death camp for Roma and Sinti. Karel VI Schwarzenberg used Roma from this camp to work in his forests and stone quarry. Today this holocaust site is desecrated by 20,000 pigs defecating near the mass graves of the children drowned by the Czech guards in the Schwarzenberg pond next to the camp.

Today in the former UN camps in Mitrovica every child conceived is born with irreversible brain damage due to the high level of lead in their mother’s blood. Last year Dr. Kouchner was asked to intervene in saving these families he had abandoned in 1999. He didn’t.

From 1984 until 1991 Schwarzenberg chaired the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. He has never apologized to the Czech Roma and Sinti (nor the Czech Jews) for the House of Schwarzenberg using them as slave labor during WWII.

Although he is the present Foreign Minister of France, Kouchner has never sent anyone from the French embassy in Pristina to help the children suffering from malnutrition and lead poisoning in the Roma camps he established in 1999 and promised to close within 45 days.

These Masters of Hypocrisy only speak out to get their own names in the headlines. They are not the moral leaders they pretend to be. They are disregarding moral and legal principals and damaging the credibility of international law.

Schwarzenberg and Kouchner are only patronizing Roma to highlight their own human rights reputations. We hope the public, and especially Roma, will now realize how false these “moral and political leaders” are.

Paul Polansky
Head of Mission
Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation 1 September 2010


SAVE LEAD-POISONED CHILDREN OF KOSOVO"

Please Sign This Petition

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/Save-Children-Dying-From-Lead-Poisoning

LOLO DIKLO: ROMANI AGAINST RACISM

Lolo Diklo is joining with Romani groups around the world in sending letters of protest to the French Ambassador protesting France's racist policies against the Romani people.

We urge other Romani and progressive groups, as well as individuals to send messages of protest to the French Ambassador in the countries in which they live.

We'll post our letter on the blog.

CANADA

Controversy swirls over Canada's part in Roma debate

FROM THE GAZETTE
montrealgazette.com

By Peter O'Neil, Europe Correspondent,
Postmedia News
August 27, 2010

PHOTO Romanian Roma people coming from France are pictured as they arrive at the Baneasa airport in Bucharest, Romania on August 19.
Photograph by: Daniel Mihailescu, AFP/Getty Images

PARIS — Canada is being drawn into the controversy over President Nicholas Sarkozy's controversial initiative to expel Roma migrants, with Immigration Minister Jason Kenney coming under criticism for agreeing to attend a France-hosted meeting here next week that has been described by some as an "anti-Roma" gathering.

That in turn has led to criticism from Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, the former B.C. premier and federal cabinet minister who has arranged to visit Roma camps and meet with senior French officials and rights groups in mid-September.

"By attending this meeting Mr. Kenney is sending the message that he agrees with the far-right policies of President Sarkozy," Dosanjh told Postmedia News Friday.

France, according to Dosanjh, is violating European Union law by deliberately targeting the Roma and should therefore be openly condemned by the Canadian government.

But a spokesman for Kenney rejected the Liberal attempt to link the Canadian government into a French initiative against Roma, which has resulted in criticism from the Vatican, the Council of Europe and groups like Amnesty International.

The meeting of Italian, Spanish, German and British officials was initiated in June after French Immigration Minister Eric Besson met with Kenney in Ottawa and invited Canada to participate on "a range of immigration and refugee issues" with other European officials, according to spokesman Alykhan Velshi.

"The status of European Roma was neither raised nor discussed in his meeting with Minister Besson."

The meeting took on a more controversial nature, however, when Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni, of Italy's far-right Northern League, said this week that he'd use the gathering to push for tougher measures to crack down on Roma migrants.

France is expected to expel almost 1,000 Roma this month as part of a high-profile "security" campaign by Sarkozy that is widely viewed here as an attempt to deflect criticism on other matters, and as a bid to woo supporters from France's far-right National Front party.

On Friday a United Nations anti-racism committee rebuked France over the crackdown, urging the government here to do more to integrate the Roma — or Gypsy — minority and fight against anti-Roma comments by politicians.

A report earlier this week in the Brussels-based EUobserver website, under the headline "French 'anti-Roma' summit disturbs EU presidency," quoted unnamed officials saying Belgium — which holds the rotating European presidency — was reluctant to attend the meeting.

The report said Canada was being invited because of its own experience with Roma migrants.

The Canadian government last year ended the right of Czech citizens to visit Canada without visas due to a flood of Roma refugee claims. Ottawa is believed to be considering a similar move against Hungary due to a rise in asylum claims from that country.

A poll Friday published in the pro-Sarkozy newspaper Le Figaro indicated that roughly two-thirds of French citizens support the Roma measures.

Sarkozy's government is waging an international campaign to win support, with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner urging all his ambassadors assembled here this week to defend France's "security" initiative.

France is offering families 300 euros per adult (about $405) and 100 euros per child. While such eviction moves are common in France, the high-profile nature of the campaign this month has drawn huge criticism.

While France is legally entitled to expel non-nationals from EU countries who arrive and are unable to find work after being here three months, the EU prohibits member states from targeting groups based on race.

"These people aren't being targeted because they are Romanian or Bulgarian. It is because they are part of an ethnic group," said Lucia Presber, a Canadian at the University of Paris and a specialist on Roma issues.

She said Canada's participation in Europe's debate is important because the country is recognized internationally as a "role model" on human rights.

"Canada could lose that reputation if it is seen as siding with Sarkozy."

KOSOVO

A Special Appeal for Advocates on behalf of Lead-Poisoned Children

The World Health Organisation has called on many occasions for Immediate Evacuation and Medical Treatment for the Romani children and their families that the United Nations placed in the toxic camps of North Mitrovica in Kosovo eleven years ago. This demand has been ignored by the UN, the Kosovo government, the USA and all countries of the European Union. It is easy to understand why in the light of Europe-wide discrimination against Roma people. No country is willing in the current political climate to offer succour to these poor families. In fact, France, Germany, Sweden and others have been actively deporting more Roma families to Kosovo, where they are receiving almost no support and are living in simply appalling conditions. Some have even ended up in these toxic camps and are now also suffering from dangerous levels of lead poisoning.

Instead of evacuation, the only action that has been taken is to fund a long-term resettlement plan to rehouse the families. This is a painfully slow process, and in the meantime nothing is being done to take the families from the lead-polluted environment. No treatment has been possible for the seriously sick children whose brains and other organs have become badly damaged. Furthermore, those families that already took up offers of rehousing in their former area at Roma mahalla in South Mitrovica, have received no medical treatment for their lead-poisoning. Nor does the the current resettlement plan, administered by Mercy Corps, the US based NGO, intend to offer treatment to these families.

A petition has been recently launched by Kosovo Medical Emergency Group and Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation which calls upon President Obama to intervene and offer temporary living space and medical treatment at Kosovo's largest military facility, Camp Bondsteel, while these resettlement plans progress. Bondsteel has ample spare capacity to house the families in safety and security with the very best of medical facilities.

Our petition has already achieved more than one thousand signatures, but in order to maximise signatures worldwide, and particularly among Roma people themselves, we need individual volunteer advocates familiar with either Romanes, Serbian, Albanian, Bosnian, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Israeli, as well as English. The role of each advocate will be to encourage concerned people from his/her own particular national/linguistic group to sign the petition.

Please sign the petition at
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/Save-Children-Dying-From-Lead-Poisoning/


Thank you on behalf of

Kosovo Medical Emergency Group

Kosovo Roma Refugee Foundation

"SAVE LEAD-POISONED CHILDREN OF KOSOVO"

SENT TO US BY ROMA FRANCAIS