GREECE, THEN AND NOW

Greek-Romani Immigrant Issue of 1898 Βecomes Current Again

BY STELLA TSOLAKIDOU

FROM THE GREEK AUSTRALIA REPORTER

http://au.greekreporter.com/2012/06/12/greek-romani-immigrant-issue-of-1898-%CE%B2ecomes-current-again/

PHOTO

Sali Ramadan, his wife Rose and their daughter Sherezada

The story behind these 26 early migrants and their exploits has resurfaced once again and taken center stage as part of the continuing dialogue focused on managing the problem of mass immigration and the reception of asylum seekers into Australia

The Greek-Romani migrant story begins back in Greece in 1897, when the Greeks lost a war against the Turks. The May 1898 truce between the two rival countries in Lamia created a wave of thousands of migrants forced to abandon their land and either migrate abroad or seek shelter in the then free Greek territories. Like many, the 26 Romani were also forced to leave their homes in the villages of Thessaly, flee to Volos and take a ship to Australia without a clue as to what the future would have in store for them.

Heeding the advice of merchants and ship-owners in Volos who told stories of a prosperous life in Australia, the Romani decided to give up whatever last funds they possessed in order to pay for their journey aboard the French steamer “Ville de la Giotat” on June 20, 1898. And this is where their adventures commence.

By mistake the 26 migrants landed in Adelaide instead of Sydney and soon became the center of unpopular negative attention in the country for quite a long time. The local authorities were alarmed by the arrival of the unexpected, unwanted and dangerous newcomers clad in rags. Their entry into the country had not been authorized, a fact which soon ignited the racial flame against the colored migrants that swept across the whole of Australia.

The local newspapers painted the arrival and appearance of the 26 Romani in the blackest of colors, while they also published their pictures. Special emphasis was put on the fact that these Romani were not of Greek origin but rather born and raised in Greece with the only work known to them was that of tinkers. Their settling into the area attracted many visitors right from the very start; some gave them money, some made fun of them and others offered them clothes and food. Most of them, however, under the guidance of the mayor of Adelaide, began organizing a campaign to drive them out of the city. Even the Australian Ambassador of Greece visited the small settlement and was surprised to know that the 26 migrants could only speak Greek.

In the meantime, the Greek-Romani issue was introduced at the South Australian parliament by an MP who suggested that no Greek, Hindu or Chinese should be allowed to enter Australia henceforward.

But the Greek-Romani migrants had a more serious problem to solve: survival. Without any means to support themselves, they resorted to wandering and begging or staging random acts of street entertainment for the local residents. They started dancing, joggling, and singing in order to make ends meet. But their way of life was not appreciated by the press or the aristocracy.

Local authorities in Adelaide did their best to expel the 26 migrants to Melbourne, but their journey did not end there. The Greek-Romani were first boarded on a train to the suburbs of Norwood, South Australia, where the people gathered at the station and made them leave with the next train. In other stations, the locals would throw stones at them or would not even let them get off the train. Whenever they could get off the train, they would put up their tents at a good distance from the village and seek for food from the peasants. There were people who helped the outcasts in any way they could before finally reaching Serviceton,Victoria on June 23rd, 1989.

The Melbourne media announced their arrival by describing them as Greek refugees or simply as Gypsies. Ninety-four Greeks publicly protested because Australian authorities and the media “classified them as Greeks” and insisted that the group were Romani from Serbia, who could speak Greek. However, the then Minister of Justice denied this story because all 26 migrants had Greek passports with them issued by the Greek Consulate in Egypt.

The press continued with its racially biased reports against the Greek-Romani. The migrants started wandering once again from one village to the next. The New South Wales government ordered its police forces to prevent the Romani from entering the county. Starving, huddling in rags, the 26 Romani dreamt of reaching Melbourne where the Greek community would hopefully help them. On August 17th, the wanderers got to Ballarat, one of the few places where they would be treated as humans. There they spent a week before setting off again to Melbourne, making a living by performing in the nearby villages. Finally, the Melbourne authorities did not allow them to enter the city opting to have them camp at the suburban area of St. Kilda, which was not under the city’s jurisdiction.

Their wandering and adventures did not stop there but rather continued for several decades.

BAIA MARE ROMANIA

Roma families re-located to buildings of a disused chemical factory

FROM NEW EUROPE

http://www.neurope.eu/article/roma-families-re-located-buildings-disused-chemical-factory

PHOTO

A Romanian protester holds a placard, reading: "Cyanide Kills," in front of ...

www.sknvibes.com

Nils Muižnieks, European Commissioner for Human Rights, is urging authorities in the Romanian city of Baia Mare to rehouse 300 Roma families who were re-located to buildings of a disused chemical factory.

Receiving reports that 22 children and two adults have already been hospitalized after exposure with toxic substances, Commissioner Muižnieks has called on the Mayor of Baia Mare to ensure that the families are provided with a new home where there is no threat for their health and where they are not segregated from the majority population.

The Commissioner has said, “The relocation into the former chemical factory buildings is clearly not an adequate, alternative housing solution”, and an investigation must be conducted. Housing families in a disused chemical factory not only is life-threatening, but it also breaches housing rights.
Stressing that relocation should be done in consultation with the people concerned, the Commissioner urges that the Roma families be provided with reparation.

This isn’t the first time Roma families, sometimes pejoratively referred to as "Gypsies", have been relocated to inadequate housing solutions. In 2004, around 75 Roma people started living in metal cabins next to a sewage plant. While Romanian law stipulates that people should not live within 300 meters of potential toxic hazards, the Roma families are living well within this danger zone.

IKEA

Mobile home family stopped in Ikea gypsy clamp down

FROM YOUR LOCAL GUARDIAN
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/topstories/9756134.Family_stopped_in_Ikea_gypsy_clamp_down/?ref=nt

BY HANNAH WILLIAMSON

Top stories By Hannah Williamson

A family in a mobile home were stopped by a security guard from entering Ikea's car park for fear they were gypsies.

The Swedish furniture giant has banned caravans and mobile homes from entering their car park in a bid to prevent gypsies from settling there.

Luke Massey visited the store, in Valley Park, with his girlfriend and her mother on Monday, June 4.
On entry to the car park the group, who were travelling in a small camper van, were flagged down by an Ikea parking attendant who asked whether they were gypsies.

Mr Massey 27, who lives in Streatham, said: "We were just aghast and my partner said 'What? Are you serious?'

"We argued with him there for about a minute before he said 'ok go on', it was like he was convinced we weren't gypsy so we could go on.

"I know this kind a camper van is slightly unusual, but it is not exclusively used by the travelling community."

After parking Mr Massey went to remonstrate with the attendant, who said they were not the only people he had stopped and questioned.

In a recording of the conversation, the attendant can be heard to say: "A lot of them are coming in similar cars. If you had said yes [to being a gypsy] I wouldn't have let you into the premises.

"We are stopping them because they are coming in and taking things of our loyal customers, that is why I'm here in the car park."

Mr Massey said: "We were honestly gob smacked. Even if they have had problems with travellers using their electricity supply or parking there at night it doesn't justify the racial profiling of customers at the front door.

"It is not acceptable, I'm disgusted."

Garry Deakin, store manager at Ikea Croydon, said: "Over recent months the travelling community in the Croydon area have been attempting to access the customer car park to set up their mobile homes, which not only has an impact on our customers’ shopping experience, but also poses a health and safety risk due to the build up of human and animal waste.

"After discussions with both the local traveller liaison officer and Croydon Council, Ikea Croydon implemented preventative procedures to secure the car park, including a security officer to patrol the entry to the car park to prevent the mobile homes entering the car park."

SWITZERLAND

PICTURING ANTI-ROMA RACISM IN SWITZERLAND

BY ZELJKO JOVANOVIC

ROMA INITIATIVES

FROM OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVES

It isn’t enough that neo-Nazis and right-wing (and not-so-right-wing) political leaders in European countries have attempted to score cheap political points during these years of economic crisis by making scapegoats of the continent’s most vulnerable minority, the Roma, among others.

Now we have a German-language magazine in one of Europe’s richest countries, Switzerland, dragging out a three-year-old file photo of a Roma boy who looks of kindergarten age pointing a gun at the lens of an Italian photographer

The headline of the article in Die Weltwoche: "The Roma Are Coming.” The gist: Roma families from Eastern Europe are fueling an increase in “crime tourism” in Switzerland.

The photo Die Weltwoche chose to run, ironically enough, is not of a Roma boy in Switzerland. (That’s obvious from the background.) The photo was taken in Kosovo, deep in the least-developed corner of the Balkans. At the time the photo was taken, the boy was living in a hovel on top of a trash heap outside the town of Gjakova. The gun was a toy.

Racial incitement against the Roma in Europe is not, unfortunately, a harmless, victimless misdeed. The image in Die Weltwoche is the kind of incitement that leads to very real injury and death. It leads to the serial killing of Roma by neo-Nazis, as occurred in Hungary just a few years ago. It leads to extremists throwing fire bombs into Roma houses, as happened in the Czech Republic. It leads to everyday people assuming that there is nothing wrong with efforts by the police in France, Italy, and Greece to expel Roma from the settlements they inhabit on the fringe of large cities as they struggle to make ends meet. It fuels the kind of prejudice that lets school administrators dump Roma kids into schools for the mentally disabled and get away with it despite court rulings and desist orders by Europe’s highest court of human rights.

More than 10 million Roma live in Europe and I am one of them. The prejudice and discrimination against us has roots going back centuries. It peaked with an extermination effort by Nazi Germany.
Die Weltwoche’s editors have defended their article despite a furor over their abuse of the photograph of the boy living on a trash pile in Kosovo. I wonder whether they considered running a story on Roma living in trash dumps in Kosovo when the picture was first taken, back in 2008.

The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma has called upon the authorities in Germany to ban the publication as racial incitement. Efforts are under way in Switzerland and Austria to follow suit. All of these countries should do so. At stake are the very values that Europe is built on.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
PICTURE: INCITING HATRED AGAINST THE ROMA

FROM OPEN SOCIETY

http://www.soros.org/voices/completely-different-picture-inciting-hatred-against-roma
BY LIVIO MANCINI

In December 2008 I went to photograph the post-war reconstruction in Kosovo being done by the Italian NATO contingent that had come to keep the peace. The soldiers were rebuilding bridges, schools and roads—nearly a decade after the war had ended. In the town of Gjakova, I was told about some families living in a slum built on a garbage dump. When I went there I realized it was a story about children and how their families tried to make ends meet. They made a living recycling the garbage they lived on.

Last week out of the blue I started getting emails from all over Europe—Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Everyone was asking about a picture I had taken back on that trip to Kosovo. They wondered if I knew how my photo was being used. I realized the photo was being taken out of context. These were kids—living in the backdrop of war—who were playing around, excited to have a foreigner take their photo.

I saw a Swiss magazine using my photo to incite and fear and hatred of the Roma. They were showing a completely different picture. That was not what I had shot—not what I had seen. I saw a kid having fun with one of the few playthings that those children had.

ROBERTO MALINI

Genoa applauds the performance of Roberto Malini accompanied by Roma virtuoso musicians

FROM EVERYONE GROUP

http://www.everyonegroup.com/EveryOne/MainPage/Entries/2012/5/30_The_poet_Roberto_Malini_at_the_International_Poetry_Festival_of_Genoa.html

Sunday, June 10, 2012. Genoa -

Giardini Emanuele Luzzati.

On the evening of June 8th, 2012 before an attentive audience, the poet and human rights defender, Roberto Malini, gave a poetry reading.

June 8th is the 72nd anniversary of the setting up of concentration camps for the Roma people in Italy.

Roberto was accompanied by four outstanding Roma musicians and the guitarist Marcello Zuinisi. The reading was received with enthusiasm by the Genoese people, who applauded after each poem. The poems, taken from the book "The Silence of the Violins", are based on true stories. Stories of the Roma people in today’s Italy: a country that persecutes Roma, subjecting them to checks, arrests, and camp evictions. While an accordion, violin, double bass and two guitars played gypsy melodies and improvised melancholic, romantic and tragic tunes, Roberto performed, with passion, the stories of Toma, Irina, Mihai, Alexandru, Emil and many other Roma that the poet has met in Pesaro, Rome, Milan, Bologna and other cities that are the theatres of the plight of the Roma people in Italy.

Franco Cirio, provincial president of UNICEF, was moved by the reading and suggested the poet and his group make a DVD with the same performance for distribution in schools. The project will be organized very soon, again in Genoa. The reading was sponsored by the Council of Europe. The organizers may have been a little afraid of promoting this poetry and musical event for the Roma people and neither the Council of Europe’s logo nor the subject of the reading ever appeared on the official communications of the International Genoa Poetry Festival. The organizer Claudio Pozzani, however, overcame any reluctance and invited Roberto Malini to the Festival, which is a first step in civility. The success of the event, perhaps, will convince him to take a greater stand next year.

In the meantime, the organizers of the important Poetry Festivals are asking Roberto Malini to give readings from the books "The Silence of the Violins" and "Declaration" (the latter soon to be published). The project, therefore, continues to grow. The RAI, Radio Popolare and several Italian newspapers have interviewed the poet and this interest from the media is a sign of openness on a topic that is too often subject to censorship. An hour before the reading, Malini and his group improvised a performance of poetry, music and human rights in the central Piazza De Ferrari, before dozens of Genoese people and numerous police officers.

EUGENICS IN THE UNITED STATES

Eugenics, Past and Future

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/douthat-eugenics-past-and-future.html?emc=eta1

BY ROSS DOUTHAT

THE current issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine includes a portrait of Irving Fisher, a Yale economics professor in the 1920s and ’30s and a giant of his field. The author, Richard Conniff, takes note of Fisher’s prodigious professional accomplishments and his private decency in order to foreground the real subject of his article: the economist’s role as one of his era’s highest-wattage proponents of eugenics.

The American elite’s pre-World War II commitment to breeding out the “unfit” — defined variously as racial minorities, low-I.Q. whites, the mentally and physically handicapped, and the criminally inclined — is a story that defies easy stereotypes about progress and enlightenment. On the one hand, these American eugenicists tended to be WASP grandees like Fisher — ivory-tower dwellers and privileged have-mores with an obvious incentive to invent spurious theories to justify their own position.

But these same eugenicists were often political and social liberals — advocates of social reform, partisans of science, critics of stasis and reaction. “They weren’t sinister characters out of some darkly lighted noir film about Nazi sympathizers,” Conniff writes of Fisher and his peers, “but environmentalists, peace activists, fitness buffs, healthy-living enthusiasts, inventors and family men.” From Teddy Roosevelt to the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, fears about “race suicide” and “human weeds” were common among self-conscious progressives, who saw the quest for a better gene pool as of a piece with their broader dream of human advancement.

This progressive fascination with eugenics largely ended with World War II and the horrors wrought by National Socialism. But while the West has discarded the theory of the eugenics era, the practice urged by Fisher and others — the elimination or pre-emption, through careful reproductive planning, of the weaker members of the human species — has become a more realistic possibility than it ever was in the 1920s and ’30s.

The eugenicists had very general ideas about genetics and heredity, very crude ideas about intelligence, and deeply poisonous ideas about racial hierarchies. They did not have, as we do, access to the genetic blueprints of individuals — including, most important, human beings still developing in utero, whose development can be legally interrupted by the intervention of an abortionist.

That access, until recently, has required invasive procedures like amniocentesis. But last week brought a remarkable breakthrough: a team of scientists mapped nearly an entire fetal genome using blood from the mother and saliva from the father.

The procedure costs tens of thousands of dollars today, but the price will surely fall. And it promises access to a wealth of information about the fetus’s biology and future prospects — information that carries obvious blessings, but also obvious temptations.

Thanks to examples like Irving Fisher, we know what the elites of a bygone era would have done with that kind of information: they would have empowered the state (and the medical establishment) to determine which fetal lives should be carried to term, and which should be culled for the good of the population as a whole.

That scenario is all but unimaginable in today’s political climate. But given our society’s track record with prenatal testing for Down syndrome, we also have a pretty good idea of what individuals and couples will do with comprehensive information about their unborn child’s potential prospects. In 90 percent of cases, a positive test for Down syndrome leads to an abortion. It is hard to imagine that more expansive knowledge won’t lead to similar forms of prenatal selection on an ever-more-significant scale.

Is this sort of “liberal eugenics,” in which the agents of reproductive selection are parents rather than the state, entirely different from the eugenics of Fisher’s era, which forced sterilization on unwilling men and women? Like so many of our debates about reproductive ethics, that question hinges on what one thinks about the moral status of the fetus.

From a rigorously pro-choice perspective, the in utero phase is a space in human development where disease and disability can be eradicated, and our impulse toward perfection given ever-freer rein, without necessarily doing any violence to human dignity and human rights.

But this is a convenient perspective for our civilization to take. Having left behind pseudoscientific racial theories, it’s easy for us to look back and pass judgment on yesterday’s eugenicists. It’s harder to acknowledge what we have in common with them.

First, a relentless desire for mastery and control, not only over our own lives but over the very marrow and sinew of generations yet unborn. And second, a belief in our own fundamental goodness, no matter to what ends our mastery is turned.

    

INTERNATIONAL ROMANI ART FESTIVAL

INTERNATIONAL ROMANI ART FESTIVAL

AUTHOR  ERSTE STIFTUNG 

FROM THE ERSTE FOUNDATION

 http://www.erstestiftung.org/blog/international-romani-art-festival/         

The International Romani Art Festival is a unique social-artistic project that shows the Romani culture to a wide audience, by bringing recognised Roma artists from around Europe. It is one of the only events of this kind in Central and Eastern Europe with an audience of 10.000 people (Roma and non-Roma). It is one of the most complex cultural events with a strong social component in Romania and Europe.

The 6th edition of the festival will take place in Bucharest, the capital with influential spheres of decision makers, but also with the most resistance to change the situation of Roma communities. International Romani Art Festival is a crucial project proving its importance in counterbalancing the negative stigmatised perception and action regarding Roma.

The Festival has a strong influence on social integration, to change stereotypes in society, by presenting the values, cultures of Roma culture in a relaxed environment for the general public. It is a wining project of the ERSTE Foundation Award for Social Integration 2011.

7-10 June 2012, Bucharest, Romania

For More information Visit: http://www.iraf.ro/

THEY USED TO CALL IT THE INQUISITION

Dispatches From The War On Women: American Nuns Hit The Road

BY JESSICA PIEKLO

http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-american-nuns-hit-the-road.html

http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-american-nuns-hit-the-road.html#ixzz1xFeL15g2

The American nuns deserve a whole lot of credit here.

First they find themselves the target of attacks by the Vatican over their doctrinal fidelity and divided loyalties–the nuns spend most of their time on social justice issues like serving the poor while the bishops prefer to lobby against health insurance and hide pedophiles.

But rather than slink away quietly as Rome told them to, they’ve decided to take their message directly to the flock. That’s right. A busload of nuns is taking a nine-state tour to highlight the social justice work they do.

The tour will coincide with the bishop’s “Fortnight of Freedom” protest and organized civil disobedience around the health care bill– a week of openly and actively fighting for the right to deny lifesaving medical care based on personal prejudice.

There really couldn’t be a starker contrast in approaches and positions then the bishops vs. the nuns.

My money is on the nuns.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-american-nuns-hit-the-road.html#ixzz1xFe4jz4j

GINA CSANYI-ROBAH

Roma activist wins Diamond Jubilee medal

FROM CANADA.COM

http://blogs.canada.com/2012/06/07/roma-activist-wins-diamond-jubilee-medal/

PHOTO

Cím: Gina Csanyi-Robah Fotó: RomNet hozzászólások ( darab ). HÍRDETÉS

www.romnet.hu

OTTAWA — One of the few voices in Canada railing against a Conservative crackdown on Roma asylum seekers is among 60,000 Canadians to receive the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Recognized for her service to her community, Roma Community Centre executive director Gina Csanyi-Robah couldn’t help but take a shot at the government in a statement Thursday.

While I am very grateful to be recognized for the work I have done, I would be happier if Jason Kenney and the Harper government recognized that countries such as Hungary and the Czech Republic are not ‘safe countries’ for the persecuted Roma minority, and to stop inadvertently condoning these human rights abuses that are taking place in parts of Central and Eastern Europe,” she said, days before Bill C-31, the government’s controversial omnibus refugee bill, is set to clear the House of Commons.

Among a myriad of other controversial measures, the bill seeks to designate certain countries as “safe,” non-typical producers of refugees and fast-track applicants under the belief they are not bona fide claimants.

While the list is a work in progress, Kenney hasn’t minced words, suggesting Hungary would be on top given all the “bogus” Roma claimants it produces.

He’s argued Roma are arriving at Canadian airports in droves yet often abandon their claims prematurely, fail to show up for hearings or are rejected because they don’t meet the criteria.
Meanwhile, Csanyi-Robah emerged on the political scene earlier this month to urge a Commons committee examining Bill C-31 to reconsider some of the provisions. She argued the persecution of Roma in Eastern and Central Europe is real and well documented and that their acceptance rate before all this “racist” anti-Roma rhetoric started was actually quite high.

In her statement, Csanyi-Robah said she’d prefer a return to the bill’s predecessor that called for an independent panel of experts to be responsible for putting the list together, rather than a “bias elected official such as Minister Kenney.”

Third reading of the bill is expected as early as Friday with the vote deferred to Monday.
A “day of action” against Bill C-31 and recently announced cuts to heath services provided to refugees is expected to take place across Canada on June 18.

The Diamond Jubilee medal is administered by the Governor General’s office and honours Canadian citizens and permanent residents who’ve made a “significant contribution” to the country, their province or community.

According to the Roma Community Centre, Csanyi-Robah was nominated by Ontario NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo’s constituency office.

She’s poised to receive her medal on June 13 during a ceremony at the Lithuanian Hall in Toronto.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Poll: Young Czech generation views Roma problem as most serious

FROM PRAGUE DAILY MONITOR

http://praguemonitor.com/2012/06/05/poll-young-czech-generation-views-roma-problem-most-serious

Prague, June 4 (CTK) -

 

The Czech majority population's rising resentment against Romanies strongly affects the views of the young generation of secondary school students, who described coexistence with the Romany minority as the country's biggest problem in a recent poll, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes Monday.

In the poll, the People in Need NGO mapped the positions of secondary school students (aged from 15 to 19) on the country's present problems and history, their political preferences and willingness to join public life.

Compared to the previous similar poll from early 2009, the fresh poll showed a significant increase in the number of students who view Romanies as the most serious present problem, LN writes.
The Romany problem is closely followed by the domestic political representation, unemployment and corruption as other big problems in students' eyes, the paper says.

"The previously expected change in the ethnic climate, in young people's relation to Romanies, their rising openness, tolerance and peer solidarity have not come true," sociologist Ivan Gabal said about the poll results.

Elite grammar school students described coexistence with Romanies as difficult more often than apprentices and vocational school students, the daily continues.

Not always did the respondents speak based on their direct experience. A half of them said the main source of information about Romanies is the media, family and friends. Only the other half said their assessment of the Romany problem ensued from their direct experience, LN writes.

Their position does "not primarily stem from their contact with Romanies. They make up their mind based on indirect experience," said Martin Simacek, head of the government agency for Romany integration.

He said it is a mistake of schools, media and parents to assure young people that coexistence with Romanies is problematic.

"It is necessary for schools to change their way of teaching and to start preparing young people for the diversity of society and the existence of minorities, of handicapped people," Simacek is quoted as saying.

It is far earlier than at secondary schools that the unfortunate situation arises, however. The mistake is made at elementary schools in which children are selected, and some - mainly Romanies - are sent to "practical" schools for kids with learning difficulties, often unrightfully, Simacek points out.
If it were not for this and if all children grew up together , the secondary schools students would assess Romanies differently, Simacek adds.

The poll also mapped secondary school students' views on the country's communist past.
"The number of [students] relativising the situation before 1989 is rising. Their parents and grandparents often plan to support the Communists (KSCM) in elections, according to polls, which is an indicator of something," says Karel Strachota, from People In Need.

Asked what party they would support when taking part in elections for the first time, the students mostly said they do not know and that they mistrust the established traditional parties.

"This is not surprising. What embarrassed me, however, was the very good result of Tomas Vandas's [ultra-right extra-parliamentary] Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS)," political analyst Josef Mlejnek told CTK.

The poll showed that as many as 12 percent of secondary school students would cast their ballots in support of the DSSS, though the party did not appear at all among their preferences in the previous poll two years ago, the paper writes.

A couple of years ago, the court banned the DSSS's predecessor, the Workers' Party (DS), as dangerous for its extremist and xenophobic positions.

The fact that as many as 13 percent of students said they favoured the Pirate Party is not surprising, on the other hand, Mlejnek said, adding that the party owes its success to students being familiar with the Internet.

The poll also indicated that the number of Eurosceptics is rising among students. Forty-three percent assessed the Czech EU membership positively, compared to 58 percent three years ago.

The portion of those believing that they have no chance to influence Czech national or local problems has remained the same, 80 percent, LN concludes.

SCOTLAND

Roma made scapegoats for the crisis

FROM A WORLD TO WIN BLOGS

http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/roma-made-scapegoats-for-crisis.html

WRITTEN BY CORINNA LOTZ

PHOTO  A GYPSY BOY AND HIS SHETLAND PONY 1930
www.news.bbc.co.uk
As unemployment rises and austerity measures bite, the scapegoating of minorities is growing across Europe. High up in the firing line are, as always, members of Europe’s 12 million-strong gypsy and Roma communities.

Small surprise then that a new report commissioned by Oxfam outlines the scale of discrimination levelled against the Roma community in Glasgow.

Having left their native countries in eastern Europe where they face rising levels of violence, sometimes aided and abetted by local politicians, Roma and gypsies from eastern Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Romania have settled legally in Scotland, many of them in Glasgow’s Southside.
But Scotland’s Roma have discovered their reception is sometimes worse than the conditions they left behind. A whistleblower at the Laurieston Jobcentre Plus (JCP), who has chosen to remain anonymous, was shocked at the levels of prejudice that prevailed.

Staff routinely referred to Roma people as “gypos, scum, beggars, suicide bombers and paedos”, she told the report’s author. They were blatantly discriminated against and not provided with benefits to which they were legally entitled.

Using evidence provided by more than 60 families about treatment by the job centre staff, the authors say that HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) often treated claims by Roma as fraudulent. Sometimes it held on to passports and birth certificates for several years. The authors found that more than half of all Roma-related benefits decisions were subject to unreasonable delays. The result was that some one in five claimants faced homelessness.

The Govanhill report’s findings bears out the harsh truth about the treatment of Roma throughout western Europe which are detailed in a major new survey carried out by the European Union and the United Nations. The researchers found that:

• only 15% of young Roma adults surveyed had completed upper-secondary general or vocational education, compared with more than 70% of the majority population living nearby
• on average, less than 30% of Roma surveyed were in paid employment
• about 45% of the Roma surveyed lived in households lacking at least one of the following: an indoor kitchen, toilet, shower or bath, or electricity
• about 40% of Roma surveyed lived in households where somebody went to bed hungry at least once in the last month because they could not afford to buy food.

And their situation is worse than that of their neighbours regarding jobs, education, housing and health. All in all, "the results present a grim picture of the situation of the Roma surveyed," the report said.

Disadvantages for Roma were apparent across all 11 countries included in the surveys, which polled more than 22,000 households. "That is precisely what we find most shocking. We would have expected to find significant differences, but from the responses of the Roma people themselves and their neighbours, we see few differences,” Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos of the EU Agency on Fundamental Rights said.

Earlier this month, Roma were forced out of a Belgrade settlement by masked attackers who shouted: "Serbia for Serbs! Roma out of Serbia!". Blatant persecution against travelling people has seen the French government defy European law by forcibly deporting Roma back to Bulgaria and Romania.
In Italy, leaders of the Northern League have encouraged attacks while city authorities bulldozed a gypsy camp outside Rome. Meanwhile, in Essex, Basildon council is defying the EU’s commissioner for Human Rights with a new round of evictions.

History is full of ugly examples of how in times of economic crisis, high unemployment and political bankruptcy, racism is the name of the game. We urgently need to develop alternative economic and political solutions to dislodge the 1% who exploit society as a whole and target those at the bottom of the scale seeking safe havens from racism and discrimination.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

PIPPERINO

There are so many things going on in the world that I feel a tad guilty with this post.
But, my dear sweet little dog (4 yrs old) died in my arms of a heart attack recently.

Today a new rescue dog came into my life.  She's 8 months old and has spent her entire life (before being saved from a high kill shelter one month ago) in a  cage.

We're having to learn to trust each other and I have no doubt that we will.

I really want to praise rescue groups, especially NewRattiude, rat terrier rescue.

They have been wonderful and deserve the support of anyone who can support them in any way.

Now to other business.

This is an excellent video which tells the story of many of us who struggle to 'get our story out.'

FROM CHIMAMANDA ADICHIE'S "THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY –

“[T]hat is how to create a single stories – show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.

“It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is ‘nkali’. It's a noun that loosely translates to ‘to be greater than another.’ Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali: How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power. “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story and start with ‘secondly’. Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have an entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.

“…Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Thank you all
Morgan

POETRY AND ART IN ITALY

POGGIBONSI OVERSHADOWS CIVIL POETRY AND ART

FROM EVERYONE GROUP

www.everyonegroup.com :: info@everyonegroup.com

BY ROBERTO MALINI

June 2, 2012.

The blog of Luigia Sorrentino (Rai News) promotes the poetry book "The Silence of the Violins",
the painting of the young Roma artist Rebecca Covaciu,
the music of Novak Tudor (Roma accordion virtuoso) and Marcello Zuinisi,
programed as cultural and artistic peak in the Festival of Shadows in Staggia Senese (Poggibonsi, Siena).

The Presidency of the Council and UNAR (Anti-discrimination Office of the Italian Government) granted a prestigious sponsorship.

The Council of Europe associated to the event its initiative "Protecting the rights of Roma."

The Happening scheduled for June 11, however, was incredibly canceled by the organizers.

In Italy the political world doesn't want to give space to culture and rights of the Roma

"For my part, I feel a great bitterness," said Roberto Malini, activist and author with Paul Polansky of the book 'The Silence the Violins', "but also a sense of danger for the human rights and the democracy as a fundamental value of the country.

How do the public administration censor - again - the beauty, truth, free art?"

ROBERTO MALINI

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Our museum has a copy of the Silence of the Violins and it's wonderful.  Strong and brave.
Both Roberto Malini and Paul Polansky work tirelessly for Human Rights.
They both, and the other artists deserve our support.
Morgan

CZECH REPUBLIC

Boy admits Roma attack lie

Břeclav assault by Roma that angered city never happened

FROM THE PRAGUE POST
http://www.praguepost.com/news/13314-boy-admits-roma-attack-lie.html#.T8fi42Nsq2o.email

By Klára Jiřičná - Staff Writer

PHOTO    Zhyvachivski, 15, fell in an accident but said Roma attacked him. CTK Photo
 

An assault on a 15-year-old that stoked racial tensions and brought thousands to the streets of Břeclav, south Moravia, in April never happened, with the boy now admitting he concocted a story alleging he had been severely beaten by a group of Roma men.

As Petr Zhyvachivski faced a lie-detector test, he admitted the story was invented out of fear he would face discipline from his mother after he fell one story while playing on a handrail in a stairway. Zhyvachivski's resulting injuries placed him in intensive care and forced him to have a kidney removed.

While the tale is likely to spark a few smiles about youthful indiscretions, Břeclav's Roma community isn't laughing and neither are human rights activists, who say the public is too quick to blame minority groups for unsolved crimes. Roma leaders were calling for a public apology and possible legal action.

More than 2,000 people took to the Břeclav streets in late April to demonstrate against the fictitious attack, including members of the far-right Workers Party for Social Justice.

Oksana Zhyvachivska, Petr's mother, issued an apology on Czech Television May 24, saying it was a "terrible experience to learn the truth."

"I don't know whether to be happy that my son survived or whether to be angry that he not only deceived me, but the whole country," she said. "I would like to apologize to the Roma minority and all of the people in Břeclav and say that I only acted as a mother and meant no harm. I know my words raised a lot of hell, and I am sorry for what they caused."

Meanwhile, the Nationwide Association of Roma (CAR) sent officials to Břeclav to plan future steps, including criminal complaints that cite arousing racial hatred. The group later backtracked on those threats following Zhyvachivska's apology.

"We feel damaged as a minority," said Stanislav Daniel, a CAR vice chairman. "People quickly drew conclusions about us based on this case. It seems to be a trend to blame the Roma for everything. But this is something society cannot afford to do."

Anna Šabatová, chairwoman of the Czech Helsinki Committee, an NGO protecting equal rights, said politicians and media failed to directly face the hateful response that kept the police busy for weeks as local Roma were systematically interrogated.

"Politicians participated by automatically sympathizing with the mother of the boy, and talked about Roma assaults," she said. "Even if this [attack] had happened, you cannot automatically blame the whole community for the actions of an individual."

The Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting has launched a project to monitor news reporting of criminal action related to the Roma minority on private broadcaster TV Nova during the first five months of 2012, with a focus on the Břeclav case. The investigation is based on suspicion of using stereotypes and prejudices when reporting on ethnic, religious or racial minorities. The results are expected in August.

CAR has sent a letter to Prime Minister Petr Nečas demanding the renewal of a Cabinet-level position related to minorities and human rights. Nečas abolished the post in September 2010 and downgraded the office to that of a commissioner rather than a minister.

In the letter, CAR also inquires why leading politicians have failed to comment on the Břeclav case, citing a dangerous atmosphere in the country and growing anti-Roma sentiment.

Břeclav Mayor Oldřich Ryšavý said he is pleased the situation now appears settled and that the unfounded allegations about Roma attackers proved false. He has backed efforts by Roma leaders to create a new community group designed to work with city leaders on minority issues.

The investigation of the fabricated assault has been closed by the south Moravian police as a Břeclav prosecutor now looks into whether Petr Zhyvachivski could face criminal charges for fabricating his story.

Roma leaders said they are awaiting a decision from prosecutors but add that they are not pushing for charges against the boy.

Klára Jiřičná can be reached at

kjiricna@praguepost.com

ROBERT MALINI

The poet Roberto Malini at the International Poetry Festival of Genoa to commemorate the Holocaust of the Roma People

Genoa, May 28, 2012.

PHOTO  
Roberto Malini reads "Poems of the Holocaust" on the Shoah Memorial Day 2012 in Vercelli

Taken by Steed Gamero

In Genoa, on the evening of June 8^th, 2012 (8 pm), at the Emanuele Luzzati Gardens, the poet and human rights defender Roberto Malini will read his poems dedicated to the condition of the Roma people in Italy.

The International Poetry Festival of Genoa is the biggest event dedicated to poetry in Italy.

The organizers have invited Malini on a symbolic date, the 74th anniversary of June 8^th, 1938, when the Italian Ministry of Interior sent a circular to all the prefectures.

The document foresaw the establishment of concentration camps for persons deemed dangerous to public order. On the same day the round-ups and deportations of Roma families began.

On June 8^th, 1930 the Porrajmos began in Italy.

Roberto Malini is the author - along with the American poet Paul Polansky - of the book of poetry "The Silence of the Violins" (published by Il Foglio, Piombino 2012, foreword by Ian Hancock), which recently won a Special Mention at the 2012 Literary Festival in Camaiore. The book is a collection of poems that relate true events: the tragedies that have hit the Roma people in Italy over recent years.

"I am proud to represent, through my poetry, the Roma people on this very significant day," says the poet. "Some Roma musicians will accompany my reading. I will read poems that speak of true heroes of our time: Alexandru and Mihai, elderly Porrajmos survivors, who are still being persecuted many years later in Italy.

Toma, the patriarch of the Roma of Pesaro, a city of evictions and persecution. Toma is currently being detained in prison.

We have applied for clemency to President Giorgio Napolitano, as the old man is innocent and seriously ill. A poem recounts the tragedy of Irina, the victim of a group of racist rapists.

Danciu is the protagonist of a gentle poem: he is a Roma artist who paints flowers in the makeshift shacks and under the bridges, to leave a trace of his passage.

I will be reading the story of Virgil, a child who never came into the world, because his young mother miscarried him during a terrible camp clearance, again in Pesaro.

The International Poetry Festival of Genoa is an ideal opportunity for this reading, because Genoa is a city of solidarity towards Roma and attentive to their ancient culture. This tolerance is a rare event in our country".

Roberto Malini is one of the founders of the international group of Roma artists, "Khetanes". He loves the interaction between the different art forms and has already worked with some of the best known Roma artists: Vadim Kolpakov (a musician who regularly collaborates with Madonna), Santino Spinelli, Jovica Jovic, the young painter Rebecca Covaciu and many others.

UNITED NATIONS REPORT

WIDESPREAD ROMA EXCLUSION PERSISTS

FROM UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2012/05/23/widespread-roma-exclusion-persists-find-new-surveys.html

PHOTO  Roma family in Cserehat, Hungary

Many Roma continue to face discrimination and social exclusion across the EU, according to a new report published jointly by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The situation of Roma is on average worse than the situation of non-Roma living in close proximity. The report is based on two surveys on the socio-economic situation of Roma and non-Roma living nearby in 11 EU Member States and in neighbouring European countries.
“These survey results paint a grim picture of the current situation of the Roma across the 11 EU Member States surveyed,” says FRA Director Morten Kjaerum. “Discrimination and anti-gypsyism persist. The results show that swift, effective action is needed, particularly to improve Roma education. This is key to unlock their future potential, and it will equip young Roma with the skills they need to escape the vicious cycle of discrimination, exclusion and poverty.”
The report shows that in the 11 EU Member States surveyed, where the overwhelming majority of Roma EU citizens live, the situation of Roma in the areas of employment, education, housing and health is on average worse than the situation of non-Roma living close by. Roma continue to experience discrimination and are not sufficiently aware of their rights guaranteed by EU law.
Some key findings:

• only 15 % of young Roma adults surveyed have completed upper-secondary general or vocational education, compared with more than 70 % of the majority population living nearby;
• on average, less than 30 % of Roma surveyed are in paid employment;
• about 45 % of the Roma surveyed live in households lacking at least one of the following: an indoor kitchen, toilet, shower or bath, or electricity;
• on average, about 40 % of Roma surveyed live in households where somebody went to bed hungry at least once in the last month because they could not afford to buy food.

“The partnership developed among four international organisations [FRA, UNDP, World Bank and European Commission] during the process of this research delivers a strong message: the challenges the Roma population faces are so grave that they require a concerted response. This publication is an example that such a united and coordinated approach is possible and that it delivers results,” says Andrey Ivanov, UNDP Senior Policy Advisor, Human Development and Roma inclusion.
The surveys have documented the situation on the ground. The results provide policy makers with the necessary evidence for designing effective policy responses to address the situation. The survey results have fed into the European Commission’s Roma Communication which will also be presented in Brussels on 23 May 2012.

RUSSIA

ROMANI IN RUSSIA


FROM MUNDI ROMANI
www.mundiromani.com


PHOTO www.english.ruvr.ru


The situation of Roma in Moscow and its suburbs is as diverse as the origins of the Roma we found there. Mundi Romani visits several families to get a taste of the richness of Romani culture and tradition in Moscow.

Tales of migration and successful family businesses, but also evictions and police brutality give a taste of extreme diversity of the lives of Roma in the region
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This is a wonderful film on the Romani in Russia.
Please check it out.

http://www.mundiromani.com/videos/?video%5Bvideo%5D%5Bitem%5D=89

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

VICTORIA GRANT

12 YEAR OLD SPELLS OUT THE FRAUD THE BANKS ARE COMMITTING AGAINST THE PEOPLE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ae7h8FioX0&sns=em
.
Victoria Grant explains why her homeland, Canada, and most of the world, is in debt. April 27, 2012 at the Public Banking in America Conference.

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Oh my.  Young people like Victoria give me so much hope.  She's speaking of the banks in Canada but she could be addressing the manipulations in the United States or any of the Euro Zone banks.

If Victoria lived in Seattle WA, I would bet she attended Pinehurst School (formerly Alternative School #1).

You must listen to this video.

Morgan

CANADA

THE ROMA AND THE IMMIGRATION BILL IN CANADA

FROM THE TORONTO STAR

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1182251--fiorito-the-roma-and-the-immigration-bill

By Joe Fiorito City Columnist

PHOTO Gina Csanyi-Robah, director of the Roma Cultural Centre in Toronto. Csanyi-Robah went to Ottawa to speak to the Senate committee looking at this government’s immigration bill.

JOE FIORITO/TORONTO STAR

Gina Csanyi-Robah, a Roma, is safe. She cannot be kicked out of the country. Her health-care benefits will not be snatched away. She is not a refugee.

She was born here. She grew up here. She went to university here. She teaches here.
She is one of us.

She is also the director of the Roma Cultural Centre, and recently she went to Ottawa and spoke to the Senate committee looking at this government’s immigration bill. She spoke on behalf of the Roma refugees.

And on behalf of us.

Did she have any impact? I’m not sure. The bill remains mean and miserable; it will snatch health care from the vulnerable, it will put pregnant women at risk, it will jeopardize the health of children and the elderly.

It also means that we are on the verge of deporting thousands of Hungarian Roma back to a country where the dangers for them will be heightened.

What kind of bill is that? Oh, sorry, I forgot. It is a Canadian Conservative government bill.
I was curious about what Gina told the committee, and so I went to see her at the cultural centre in the west end of the city. I wanted to know a bit about her first. She said, “I’m a Canadian-born Roma. I’m 37. I’ve been dealing with racism all my life. My family came here in 1956.” In other words, during the upheaval of the revolution.

“My grandparents put my aunt in a suitcase and walked out. At the time, my grandmother was pregnant with my mother.”

Her aunt, in a suitcase? “One of those carry bags; my aunt was a baby at the time. My grandparents were musicians. I come from a family of five generations of violin players; my grandmother danced, and my grandfather played in the grand hotels of Szekesfehervar.”

The family landed in Nova Scotia and went to work on farms in the Niagara region; eventually, they moved to Hamilton. “My grandparents didn’t speak English, they never went to school; school is not where Roma had good experiences.

“When my mother was 7 years old, the Children’s Aid took the kids from my grandparents and put them in foster homes.” Why? “Because they weren’t in school. The result? “My grandfather began to drink when the children were taken away. He died as a result.”

But Gina is the best example of what ultimately happens to the children and grandchildren of all refugees — Roma and others — in Canada: she grew up bright, sensitive, and committed to making things better in the wider world. She is also the first person in her family to get past Grade 10. She has a double major in political science and sociology.

Why did she want to go to Ottawa? She said, “I’m Canadian before I’m anything; what I see in this bill is the opposite of everything I was taught.”

I was about to press her for specifics, but she wanted to give me as much background as she could, so that I would understand. “My grandmother’s sister was a Holocaust survivor. They did experiments on her reproductive system. Her first child was born deformed.”

That memory sharpened something inside her. “The odds are stacked against us. We have limited opportunities for inclusion. Our contact with the dominant society? People spit on you; a lot of Canadians don’t get that.”

And then she said something which I have always suspected: “There are Roma settlements that are more than 400 years old; we didn’t start out nomadic, and we don’t want to end nomadic.”
What did she tell the committee?

Wait for it.
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Thank you Joe for this article.
It received some virulent, racist comments.
Morgan

SARA LA KALI

SAINTES-MARIES-DE-LA-MER

Today is the annual festival to Sarah la Kali, the Gypsy Patron Saint.

Someday I hope to attend the festival near Arles in Southern France.

Please check out the posting on this blog for information on Sara

MBFGW. THE BEAT GOES ON

IS THIS BIG FAT INSTITUTIONAL RACISM AT THE ADVERTISING STANDARDS AUTHORITY (ASA)??

FROM FRIENDS FAMILY AND TRAVELERS

http://www.gypsy-traveller.org/is-this-big-fat-institutional-racism-at-the-advertising-standards-authority-asa/

The Irish Traveller Movement in Britain (ITMB) is delighted to report that the Independent Reviewer of the ASA has today directed the Council of the ASA to reconsider their decision not to conduct a formal investigation into the 372 complaints made about Channel 4s highly controversial billboard campaign Bigger Fatter Gypsier.

David Enright (a partner with Howe & Co Solicitors who have been representing the ITMB and a number of individual Travellers and Gypsies) said:

This is a huge victory for the Traveller and Gypsy communities. Earlier this year, Channel 4 plastered the UK with their highly offensive billboard advertising campaign. The advertising campaign caused outrage. Hundreds of Travellers and Gypsies complained to the ASA about these adverts, which they saw as being racially demeaning and damaging to them, their communities and their children. Despite receiving hundreds of detailed complaints the ASA Council decided not to even bother investigating. Today the Independent Reviewer of the ASA, Sir Hayden Phillips, has taken the unusual step of directing the ASA to reconsider their decision not to conduct a formal investigation into this advertising campaign. Travellers and Gypsies now wait to see if the ASA Council considers that they are entitled to equal protection by the regulator.

Yvonne MacNamara (Director of the ITMB) said:
We and the people we represent were horrified by this giant billboard advertising campaign. Posters of dirty faced, violent looking Traveller children went up everywhere including outside schools. We know of a number of Traveller children who were bullied and ostracised by their school friends as a direct result of this truly offensive Ad campaign
.
We made a detailed complaint to the ASA pointing out the obvious breaches of the Broadcasting Code. We challenged the ASA to agree that it would never have permitted such an advertising campaign that bore the slogan Bigger Fatter Muslimer or Bigger Fatter Blacker or Bigger Fatter Jewier.

We were astonished when our complaint, alongside the complaints of hundreds of other Travellers and Gypsies, NGOs, friends and supporters were dismissed out of hand. We were shocked and dismayed when we later discovered that the ASA took the decision to not even bother investigating these serious complaints of racist denigration and characterisation.

Background

At the beginning of 2012, Channel 4 launched a massive nationwide bill board advertising campaign in support of their forthcoming series Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. The advertising campaign consisted of huge bill board posters with pictures of very young Gypsy and Traveller children appearing dirty, out of control and violent, Traveller men looking menacing, young Traveller girls in Holy Communion dresses and Young Traveller women in revealing party clothes. All of the giant posters bore the slogan Bigger Fatter Gypsier.

The advertising campaign sparked outrage in the Traveller and Gypsy Communities, as well as amongst the settled community. The campaign was widely criticised and commented on right across the national media. The ASA received 372 complaints from individuals and representative groups, speaking on behalf of large groups, alleging that the advertisements were racist, racially denigrating and had the potential to incite racial hatred.

The ITMB made a detailed complaint to the ASA on the 15 February 2012, as did hundreds of other individuals and groups. On the 23 February the ASA issued a standard letter to all complainants dismissing their complaints. It later transpired that the ASA council decided to not even bother undertaking a formal investigation as a result of this avalanche of complaints.

The ITMB lodged an appeal with the Independent Reviewer of the ASA, Sir Hayden Phillips, on 1 May 2012. Today the Independent Reviewer Ruled:

I am now writing to let you know that, having considered the Grounds for Appeal sent to me by your solicitors, together with the other documents which they provided, and having considered all the papers on the ASA file in this case, I have decided to recommend to the ASA Council that they reconsider their decision not to conduct a formal investigation into the complaints you had made about the poster advertising by Channel Four.

I am minded to recommend that the Council should now conduct a formal investigation but I must emphasise that the Council is in no way bound by my recommendation.

Yvonne MacNamara said:

Travellers and Gypsies are the last ethnic minority group against whom it is still acceptable to make derogatory jokes and to malign and denigrate in the media, the last bastion of acceptable prejudice. That ends today. Travellers are one of Britains oldest ethnic minority groups, proud of their culture and heritage and will not allow their community to be abused anymore.

Channel 4 needs to wake up and smell the coffee. This is 2012 not 1912
We will be fighting hard to force the ASA to stand up for Travellers and to perform their proper regulatory duty, by not allowing this public vilification of Travellers and Gypsies to go unpunished anymore.

Contacts:
Yvonne MacNamara Director ITMB 0207 6072002 07961432074
David Enright Howe & Co Solicitors 0208 840 4688 0798 4465923
Mike Doherty ITMB Communications Officer or Matthew Bindley Policy and Research Officer 0207 6072002