05.01.2011 gypsies in the news
For some reason today was super busy with gypsy news, so I thought I'd lump it all in together and maybe we can ~chat about it.
So yeh, here's 05.01.2011 gypsy style~
The Czech Republic's Roma Problem Gets Educational
in full @ Transitions Online
Roma children head to trade schools more often than their non-Roma peers, and many of them never graduate. Only 14 percent of Roma transfer to studies offering the equivalent of a high school diploma as compared to the vast majority of non-Roma pupils.
Fewer than 2 percent of Roma enrol in academic high school. According to the analysis, eight Roma out of 1,000 make it to academic high school, six of them to a multi-year academic high school and two of them to four-year high schools.
Almost 39 percent of Roma children from socially excluded localities leave mainstream elementary school early. Roma children are approximately eight times more likely to leave primary education early than the national average.
While 68 percent of socially disadvantaged Roma pupils enrol in trade schools, many of them leave early. Of the 212 Roma children who were studied after their enrolment in trade schools between 2005 and 2007, roughly half graduated. The rest either transferred to different schools, left school temporarily, or left school altogether.
Now this data hasn't been produced by some fly-by-night research company producing numbers with some suspicious-looking methodology. It's the handiwork of GAC, the company of Ivan Gabal, a top sociologist who produced a landmark study for the Czech government in 2006 that concluded that 80,000 Roma--roughly a third of the country's Roma population--live in ghettos, with between 95 and 100 percent unemployment. This time, Gabal and his colleagues looked more specifically at educational opportunities for the children living in those ghettos or excluded communities, with their conclusions naturally weighted toward the Roma (though they aren't the only ones living in these areas). Their study collected data from 14 schools near socially excluded localities over the past five school years and used the school records of 2,204 children.
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Gypsy Protest After Police Accidentally Kill 6-Year-Old Girl
in full @ Winnipeg Free Press
ATHENS, Greece - Dozens of youths in a Gypsy area outside Athens clashed with police Wednesday after a 6-year-old girl was accidentally killed by a police motorcycle.
The youths hurled rocks and flares at riot police and set fire to trash bins, and police responded with tear gas.
State health officials say the girl died in a hospital Wednesday after the accident in the Menidi area, north of the capital.
Police said a 22-year-old police office was arrested in connection with the girl's death but had not yet been charged.
More than 120,000 Gypsies, or Roma, live in Greece, according to government estimates, and almost half of them live in tents and shacks in settlements outside cities across the country -- some with poor sanitation and no electricity or running water.
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Government Vows To Abolish Decimator Law Against Roma
in full @ Today's Zaman
A law that allows the Interior Ministry to expel Roma people from Turkey as it deems necessary, referring to this group as "gypsies" in its text, will be abolished, State Minister Faruk Çelik has announced.
In a meeting he held with representatives of more than 20 Roma associations from all over Turkey at Justice and Development Party (AK Party) headquarters yesterday, Çelik said the Roma were highly dignified people who were also sensitive about Turkey's unity. He said legislation that was first passed in the 1930s urgently needed to be amended. He recalled that the AK Party had removed an article from the Public Works Law of 1934 that stated: "Those who have not shown allegiance to Turkish culture, anarchists, nomadic gypsies, spies and those who have been expelled cannot be accepted as immigrants to Turkey." He said a similar provision that left it to the will of the Interior Ministry to expel "gypsies" was to be removed this week.
"I know the Roma are proud to be citizens of Turkey and to be in Turkey under this flag. They are people who are in love with this country, this flag and the country's unity. That's why expressions humiliating the Roma were removed from relevant legislation in 2006," he said.
The government launched the Roma initiative in late 2009. A government-sponsored workshop was held on Dec. 9, 2009 to address issues facing the Roma community. Representatives of Turkey's Roma community in İstanbul, Edirne, Kırşehir, Artvin, Van and several other cities, 120 people in all, attended the event. A report was drafted listing the Roma community's demands from the government following the workshop. In an unprecedented meeting, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with nearly 10,000 Roma in March of last year as part of the Roma initiative. Çelik said the government is determined to continue with the Roma initiative and to address problems faced by them.
ilu turkey <3
they are literally the only country on the planet that not only says they'll do stuff like this on such a massive scale but actually bothers following through on it. <33333
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French Authorities Must Stop Stigmatizing Roma
in full @ Amnesty International
Hundreds of marginalized Romanian and Bulgarian Roma families in France face being left without adequate shelter this winter as they face an ongoing threat of eviction from their camps.
Anti-Roma sentiment and discriminatory practices by French public officials have been widespread and have intensified during 2010.
In July, President Nicolas Sarkozy referred to 'irregular' Roma camps as "sources of illegal trafficking, profoundly degrading living conditions, [and] exploitation of children for the purposes of begging, prostitution and criminality". At a ministerial meeting, he ordered the dismantling of such sites "to proceed within... three months" and called for legislative reforms to speed the process of removing Roma from France.
On 5 August, the French Ministry of the Interior issued a policy circular to all local authorities, targeting Roma camps as a "priority" to be dismantled. The 5 August circular followed earlier instructions issued jointly by the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Immigration, which laid out specific steps for local authorities and law enforcement to (i) dismantle illegal camps, (ii) identify inhabitants who were not French and who do not have regular immigration status, (iii) identify violations of public order, and (iv) then take measures to remove such inhabitants from France. Following public outcry about the discriminatory effect of targeting an ethnic group for a programme of evictions, the Ministry withdrew the 5 August circular which specifically targeted Roma, and replaced it, on 13 September, with an order to dismantle "all 'illegal camps'" on French territory.
Even though the specifically discriminatory language of the 5 August circular has been withdrawn, the various existing policy instructions and circulars issued in 2010 appear, when taken together, to devote considerable effort to identifying illegal camps, dismantling them, and expelling their inhabitants from France where possible. These measures, when put into practice, appear to disproportionately target Roma from Romania and Bulgaria.
Concerns about discrimination against Roma in France have been raised by numerous international bodies and NGOs, including the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the European Commission and the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg.
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(and okay, this was technically from the 4th, but it's about something which happened today so...)
Dale Farm: Brighton Meet Supports Defence Plan
more info @ the dale farm facebook group
BRIGHTON will be the location tomorrow evening (5 January) for the latest in a series of public meetings being held to consolidate opposition to the Tory-inspired plan for Britain's biggest anti-Gypsy clearance operation to date.
Denounced as an act of ethnic-cleansing by the opposition Labour Party, it could cost a whopping £13 million and last up to thee weeks to complete, according to police and local authority estimates.
Answering an appeal first put out by filmstar Venessa Redgrave hundreds of people have volunteered to create a humanshield to protect the children of Dale Farm from the bulldozers.
Many have pledged to join mothers and chain themselves to caravans in order the thwart the notorious Constant & Co bailiffs, the anti-Gypsy security firm hired for the job. They will also defy the movement of heavy plant machinery supplied by H.E.Services and George Moore, both earning themselves a bad name for aiding violent action against the homeless.
Dale Farm is a long established Travellers' community in the countryside near Basildon, Essex. The largest of its kind in the country, it is home to nearly 1,000 people. Half the residents are now under threat of imminent eviction, after being refused permission to live on their own land.
In response to an Urgent Action Appeal from the residents of Dale Farm, including Richard Sheridan, head of the Gypsy Council, the Brighton meeting will discuss practical solidarity and non-violent defence tactics that have been prepared in advance of the eviction, expected this spring.
Travellers have been living on the threatened part of the Dale Farm estate for ten years. They have a strong attachment to the nearby catholic church and their children go to local schools.
The community has been resisting forced eviction attempts by Basildon District Council since May 2005 when it voted to clear a large part of the settlement at a costy of £3m. Basildon has refused all attempts to regularise the planning situation and instead have contracted Constant & Co. Both Labour and Liberal councillors have denounced the eviction as ethnic-cleansing.
In March 2010 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) issued a letter urging the UK Government to suspend the eviction until an positive solution is achieved, with the participation of the community, guaranteeing protection of housing rights through provision of adequate alternative accommodation.
so fed up of this fucking racist, sexist, backward tory government. they're completely obsessed w/ emptying dale farm, even though they've tried and failed a million times before (i mean, last time the bulldozers started knocking down buildings whilst children were still walking around the site; i'm still surprised none of them got killed tbh). ugh.
------
just for reference:
- use either "romani" or "gypsies" to refer to the race in it's entirety. (if you're white don't start going "you can't use that! it's a slurrrr~ omg i'm only trying to help you" because lol no, shut up.)
- roma/sinti/kala/manouche etc should only be used when referring to people you know belong to that particular group. in other words, don't refer to all romani as roma because that's like calling all europeans swedish or w/e.
So yeh, here's 05.01.2011 gypsy style~
The Czech Republic's Roma Problem Gets Educational
in full @ Transitions Online
Roma children head to trade schools more often than their non-Roma peers, and many of them never graduate. Only 14 percent of Roma transfer to studies offering the equivalent of a high school diploma as compared to the vast majority of non-Roma pupils.
Fewer than 2 percent of Roma enrol in academic high school. According to the analysis, eight Roma out of 1,000 make it to academic high school, six of them to a multi-year academic high school and two of them to four-year high schools.
Almost 39 percent of Roma children from socially excluded localities leave mainstream elementary school early. Roma children are approximately eight times more likely to leave primary education early than the national average.
While 68 percent of socially disadvantaged Roma pupils enrol in trade schools, many of them leave early. Of the 212 Roma children who were studied after their enrolment in trade schools between 2005 and 2007, roughly half graduated. The rest either transferred to different schools, left school temporarily, or left school altogether.
Now this data hasn't been produced by some fly-by-night research company producing numbers with some suspicious-looking methodology. It's the handiwork of GAC, the company of Ivan Gabal, a top sociologist who produced a landmark study for the Czech government in 2006 that concluded that 80,000 Roma--roughly a third of the country's Roma population--live in ghettos, with between 95 and 100 percent unemployment. This time, Gabal and his colleagues looked more specifically at educational opportunities for the children living in those ghettos or excluded communities, with their conclusions naturally weighted toward the Roma (though they aren't the only ones living in these areas). Their study collected data from 14 schools near socially excluded localities over the past five school years and used the school records of 2,204 children.
----
Gypsy Protest After Police Accidentally Kill 6-Year-Old Girl
in full @ Winnipeg Free Press
ATHENS, Greece - Dozens of youths in a Gypsy area outside Athens clashed with police Wednesday after a 6-year-old girl was accidentally killed by a police motorcycle.
The youths hurled rocks and flares at riot police and set fire to trash bins, and police responded with tear gas.
State health officials say the girl died in a hospital Wednesday after the accident in the Menidi area, north of the capital.
Police said a 22-year-old police office was arrested in connection with the girl's death but had not yet been charged.
More than 120,000 Gypsies, or Roma, live in Greece, according to government estimates, and almost half of them live in tents and shacks in settlements outside cities across the country -- some with poor sanitation and no electricity or running water.
-----
Government Vows To Abolish Decimator Law Against Roma
in full @ Today's Zaman
A law that allows the Interior Ministry to expel Roma people from Turkey as it deems necessary, referring to this group as "gypsies" in its text, will be abolished, State Minister Faruk Çelik has announced.
In a meeting he held with representatives of more than 20 Roma associations from all over Turkey at Justice and Development Party (AK Party) headquarters yesterday, Çelik said the Roma were highly dignified people who were also sensitive about Turkey's unity. He said legislation that was first passed in the 1930s urgently needed to be amended. He recalled that the AK Party had removed an article from the Public Works Law of 1934 that stated: "Those who have not shown allegiance to Turkish culture, anarchists, nomadic gypsies, spies and those who have been expelled cannot be accepted as immigrants to Turkey." He said a similar provision that left it to the will of the Interior Ministry to expel "gypsies" was to be removed this week.
"I know the Roma are proud to be citizens of Turkey and to be in Turkey under this flag. They are people who are in love with this country, this flag and the country's unity. That's why expressions humiliating the Roma were removed from relevant legislation in 2006," he said.
The government launched the Roma initiative in late 2009. A government-sponsored workshop was held on Dec. 9, 2009 to address issues facing the Roma community. Representatives of Turkey's Roma community in İstanbul, Edirne, Kırşehir, Artvin, Van and several other cities, 120 people in all, attended the event. A report was drafted listing the Roma community's demands from the government following the workshop. In an unprecedented meeting, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with nearly 10,000 Roma in March of last year as part of the Roma initiative. Çelik said the government is determined to continue with the Roma initiative and to address problems faced by them.
ilu turkey <3
they are literally the only country on the planet that not only says they'll do stuff like this on such a massive scale but actually bothers following through on it. <33333
-----
French Authorities Must Stop Stigmatizing Roma
in full @ Amnesty International
Hundreds of marginalized Romanian and Bulgarian Roma families in France face being left without adequate shelter this winter as they face an ongoing threat of eviction from their camps.
Anti-Roma sentiment and discriminatory practices by French public officials have been widespread and have intensified during 2010.
In July, President Nicolas Sarkozy referred to 'irregular' Roma camps as "sources of illegal trafficking, profoundly degrading living conditions, [and] exploitation of children for the purposes of begging, prostitution and criminality". At a ministerial meeting, he ordered the dismantling of such sites "to proceed within... three months" and called for legislative reforms to speed the process of removing Roma from France.
On 5 August, the French Ministry of the Interior issued a policy circular to all local authorities, targeting Roma camps as a "priority" to be dismantled. The 5 August circular followed earlier instructions issued jointly by the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Immigration, which laid out specific steps for local authorities and law enforcement to (i) dismantle illegal camps, (ii) identify inhabitants who were not French and who do not have regular immigration status, (iii) identify violations of public order, and (iv) then take measures to remove such inhabitants from France. Following public outcry about the discriminatory effect of targeting an ethnic group for a programme of evictions, the Ministry withdrew the 5 August circular which specifically targeted Roma, and replaced it, on 13 September, with an order to dismantle "all 'illegal camps'" on French territory.
Even though the specifically discriminatory language of the 5 August circular has been withdrawn, the various existing policy instructions and circulars issued in 2010 appear, when taken together, to devote considerable effort to identifying illegal camps, dismantling them, and expelling their inhabitants from France where possible. These measures, when put into practice, appear to disproportionately target Roma from Romania and Bulgaria.
Concerns about discrimination against Roma in France have been raised by numerous international bodies and NGOs, including the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the European Commission and the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg.
-----
(and okay, this was technically from the 4th, but it's about something which happened today so...)
Dale Farm: Brighton Meet Supports Defence Plan
more info @ the dale farm facebook group
BRIGHTON will be the location tomorrow evening (5 January) for the latest in a series of public meetings being held to consolidate opposition to the Tory-inspired plan for Britain's biggest anti-Gypsy clearance operation to date.
Denounced as an act of ethnic-cleansing by the opposition Labour Party, it could cost a whopping £13 million and last up to thee weeks to complete, according to police and local authority estimates.
Answering an appeal first put out by filmstar Venessa Redgrave hundreds of people have volunteered to create a humanshield to protect the children of Dale Farm from the bulldozers.
Many have pledged to join mothers and chain themselves to caravans in order the thwart the notorious Constant & Co bailiffs, the anti-Gypsy security firm hired for the job. They will also defy the movement of heavy plant machinery supplied by H.E.Services and George Moore, both earning themselves a bad name for aiding violent action against the homeless.
Dale Farm is a long established Travellers' community in the countryside near Basildon, Essex. The largest of its kind in the country, it is home to nearly 1,000 people. Half the residents are now under threat of imminent eviction, after being refused permission to live on their own land.
In response to an Urgent Action Appeal from the residents of Dale Farm, including Richard Sheridan, head of the Gypsy Council, the Brighton meeting will discuss practical solidarity and non-violent defence tactics that have been prepared in advance of the eviction, expected this spring.
Travellers have been living on the threatened part of the Dale Farm estate for ten years. They have a strong attachment to the nearby catholic church and their children go to local schools.
The community has been resisting forced eviction attempts by Basildon District Council since May 2005 when it voted to clear a large part of the settlement at a costy of £3m. Basildon has refused all attempts to regularise the planning situation and instead have contracted Constant & Co. Both Labour and Liberal councillors have denounced the eviction as ethnic-cleansing.
In March 2010 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) issued a letter urging the UK Government to suspend the eviction until an positive solution is achieved, with the participation of the community, guaranteeing protection of housing rights through provision of adequate alternative accommodation.
so fed up of this fucking racist, sexist, backward tory government. they're completely obsessed w/ emptying dale farm, even though they've tried and failed a million times before (i mean, last time the bulldozers started knocking down buildings whilst children were still walking around the site; i'm still surprised none of them got killed tbh). ugh.
------
just for reference:
- use either "romani" or "gypsies" to refer to the race in it's entirety. (if you're white don't start going "you can't use that! it's a slurrrr~ omg i'm only trying to help you" because lol no, shut up.)
- roma/sinti/kala/manouche etc should only be used when referring to people you know belong to that particular group. in other words, don't refer to all romani as roma because that's like calling all europeans swedish or w/e.