Category Archives: Roma, Gypsies and Travellers

‘I always wanted a girl’: scandal of Czech Roma forcibly sterilised

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Czech MPs to debate compensation bill for women as state refuses to acknowledge ‘attempted genocide’

Elena Gorolová was 21 when she gave birth to her second son. “The doctor told me I would need to deliver via a C-section otherwise I would be risking the health of me and the baby.”

In the delivery room, a nurse gave her papers to sign. “I was in so much pain … I was in no state to think about what I was signing,” says the social workerfrom the Czech Republic. She had unknowingly signed an agreement to be sterilised.

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Roma suffer under EU’s ‘environmental racism’, report concludes

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Thousands live in squalor due to policies of exclusion and deprivation, says study

Europe’s Roma communities are often living on polluted wastelands and lacking running water or sanitation in their homes as a result of “environmental racism”, a report has concluded.

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), a pan-European network of green NGOs, found Roma communities were often excluded from basic services, such as piped drinking water, sanitation and rubbish collection, while frequently living at or near some of the dirtiest sites in Europe, such as landfills or contaminated industrial land.

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EU vows to help nationals ‘outside the mainstream’ stay in UK

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Bloc’s first UK ambassador says right to remain for many vulnerable Europeans must be protected

Prisoners and members of the Roma community, along with elderly people and the poorest in society, will be the focus of a new EU push to help Europeans “outside the mainstream” to remain in the UK after Brexit.

There are concerns that thousands of EU nationals will fail to apply to the Home Office to stay because they lack information or the means to see the digital application process through.

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Poverty-stricken Hungarians are easy pickings for traffickers on Facebook

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Promises of a better life in many social media posts are often a trap for marginalised communities such as the Roma

In the village of Bag, north-east of Budapest, the houses along the main street are smart and well-kept. Tucked behind, up a slight hill, where the buildings become bare brick and the tarmac road turns into a dust track, people sit on the ground in the afternoon sun, talking and playing cards.

These are the Roma, or the Roma who remain in Hungary, where they live on society’s edge, clinging on in the outskirts of towns and villages, shunned and stigmatised as potential criminals.

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The soul of Perpignan: how a Gypsy community halted the bulldozers

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The French city wanted to demolish large portions of its St Jacques neighbourhood as part of a wider development plan. It had not reckoned with its residents

Photography by Jesco Denzel

Never schedule a demolition in St Jacques for the afternoon. Nothing much stirs in the morning in this mainly Gypsy neighbourhood of Perpignan, south-west France, but by 4pm on 27 July last year, when the diggers turned up at Place du Puig, the locals were up – and full of fire.

Sixty of them, furious at what they saw as mystifying recent demolitions in other parts of the neighbourhood, and worried about a conspiracy to force the Gypsy community out of the heart of Perpignan, refused to let the workman pull another lever.

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Hundreds of Roma ‘forcibly removed’ from Russian village

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Governor blames tensions on US after about 650 believed evicted from Chemodanovka

Hundreds of Roma people have been forcibly evicted from a village in western Russia, the head of the village council has admitted, after one ethnic Russian was killed and another left in a coma.

The regional government quickly tried to backtrack on the comments by Sergey Fadeev, who told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta: “Buses were brought and all the [Roma] who lived here were taken to Volgograd, where the local diaspora had agreed to accept them. It was done forcibly. Now we are studying the legality of their living in our village.”

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Travellers’ challenge to ban on camping on public land succeeds

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Bromley decision could have implications for other UK authorities seeking injunctions

A high court judge has refused to grant a final injunction banning Travellers from stopping on vast swathes of public land, in a ruling that could have major implications on whether other local authorities are allowed such orders.

The London borough of Bromley obtained a de facto borough-wide injunction preventing people from camping on 171 parcels of land in August 2018. The campaign group London Gypsies and Travellers challenged this injunction, arguing it was a disproportionate and discriminatory response to the accommodation crisis of Gypsies and Travellers.

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UK politicians accused of racist rhetoric against Travellers

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MPs and councillors have branded group illiterate and violent over past two years

Politicians have been accused of using racist rhetoric against Travellers to help push through sweeping bans against unauthorised encampments.

In a range of documents and speeches, Travellers have been branded illiterate, violent and lawless by MPs and councillors over the last two years, as a deepening housing crisis has led to an increase in roadside encampments.

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Footage of Italian boy who stood up to fascists goes viral

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Video shows boy known as Simone saying Roma people should not ‘be abandoned’

A 15-year-old boy who stood up to far-right activists during violent protests in Rome has won plaudits across Italy.

The boy, Simone, was filmed speaking out in defence of minorities on Tuesday, when hundreds of far-right activists and residents took to the streets of Torre Maura, a Rome suburb. They were demonstrating against the temporary rehousing of 70 Roma people at a reception centre in the area.

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Boy confronts far-right activists protesting against Roma refugees in Italy – video

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A 15-year-old boy is being hailed as a 'hero of the left’ after he stood up to far-right activists during violent protests in Rome. Simone was filmed speaking out in defence of minorities on Tuesday, when hundreds of people took to the streets to demonstrate against the temporary rehousing of 70 Roma people in Torre Maura, a Rome suburb

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Neo-fascist violence keeps Roma out of Rome neighbourhood

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City council appears to capitulate after protesters set cars on fire and destroy food

Hundreds of neo-fascists, far-right activists and local residents took to the streets of a Rome suburb on Tuesday in a violent protest against 70 Roma people, including 33 children and 22 women, who were to be temporarily transferred to a reception centre in the area.

Demonstrators set fire to cars and bins, destroyed food that was meant for Roma and prevented their entry into a shelter for vulnerable people.

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Church of England urged to make land available to Gypsies

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Synod to vote to protect Roma, Gypsies and Travellers from ‘institutional racism’

The Church of England is being urged to make land available for Gypsies and travelling communities who face institutional racism and ostracisation.

It may also appoint chaplains to provide pastoral care to Gypsies and Travellers, and to encourage them to become part of the church.

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