Mugur Varzariu's Photos of Roma [NYTimes.com] →
“Watch out! Gypsies steal little children.”
That’s what Mugur Varzariu was often warned when he was growing up in Bucharest, Romania. Years later, working as a marketing strategist, he regularly heard — in “polite society,” no less — that the Roma people were lazy or criminals.
The Roma are often referred to as Gypsies, a term many consider offensive. Their ancestors, who came to Europe from India, have faced oppression and violence for centuries in Europe. They share language, culture and — until the 20th century — a nomadic way of life.
Mr. Varzariu, 42, knew very few Roma before he switched careers two years ago to become a photographer. In July 2011, after hearing that the mayor of Baia Mare, a small city in northern Romania, was building a 6-foot wall to separate a Roma community from its neighbors — creating a ghetto — Mr. Varzariu traveled there to see for himself.
"Killing the Gypsy Dream" →
I’ve been seeing way more of these articles springing up online, especially via the Huffington Post. It perturbs me. We don’t need anymore white saviours coming into our communities and deciding what to expose of our culture - especially with the continued overuse of the word “Gypsy” (or in this case gypsy - we don’t even get a capitalized ethnicity designation) and declaration of the unsolved (unsolvable) “Roma problem”. The author claims that integration of the Roma is the only way to go. Implying that the Roma of Romania are a “European problem”, completely missing the point that Roma themselves are not a problem - the problem lies within the governmental structure and rhetoric of these countries that force Roma into seclusion and poverty (Romania is certainly not the only country; and let’s not forget the walls erected to separate Roma communities in Romania, Slovakia, and many other European countries). The author also states that Roma people commit murders, theft, and beg - as though this was commonplace and as though these poor Roma children are suffering because of their parents base behaviour.
Articles like this make me sick. The author decided to visit communities to expose the reality of Roma life, but instead all she does is reiterate the bigoted and racist rhetoric of Romanian media - claiming instead that it is some kind of revelation. I am disappointed in the Huffington Post. Very disappointed.
Click through for the full article.
Roma families in Romania 'enclosed' by new wall →
There has been controversy in two Romanian towns in which a large number of Roma gypsy people live - thanks to the building of walls which appear to separate the Roma from the wider community.
The erection of a concrete wall in Baia Mare in northern Romania has led to a human rights group accusing the town of trying to set up a ghetto. The mayor of the town, Catalin Chereches, says the wall has been designed to prevent traffic accidents.
Tom Wilson visited Baia Mare - and, first, another town in Transylvania in which local Roma have experienced the effects of a new wall.
[BBC NEWS]
Romania: Ghetto or Helping?
From the Vancouver Sun:
BAIA MARE, Romania — Building a wall that closes in a Roma neighbourhood and rehousing families in a dilapidated Communist-era office block have earned Catalin Chereches accusations of racism.
But the actions have also helped the mayor of the northern Romanian town of Baia Mare to become the country’s most popular local politician and shown how central Europe’s lacklustre economies and widespread poverty can trigger radical solutions.
Chereches, 33, an urbane Vienna-educated economist, says he is trying to improve the lot of Baia Mare’s impoverished Roma. Rights groups counter that he is enclosing the population in ghettos and making the situation worse.
He says living conditions have improved by moving families away from a slum where naked children play in the dust with stray dogs and cats. But it still keeps Roma separate from other people and lacks space and bathrooms.
“It’s clear, conditions there are not similar to the Hilton or Marriott. But this doesn’t mean this is not a step forward towards their civilization and emancipation,” Chereches said in his tidy and modest office.
Roma is a term for various groups who have migrated across Europe for centuries and are now the biggest ethnic minority in the European Union, most of them from countries like Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. There are an estimated 10 million Romas across Europe and one in five lives in Romania.
The vast majority live on the margins of society in abject poverty, which makes them easy targets in troubled times, and pro-democracy groups say post-communist governments in the region have not done enough to improve their plight.
“Moving people belonging to a single ethnic group together is called ethnic separation,” said Robert Vaszi, director of Roma rights group Asociatia Sanse Egale. “This is breaching human rights.”
As central Europe’s economies flag in their attempts to catch up with western Europe, there are signs voters may be turning away from mainstream politics towards more radical groups, or moving to support those individuals, like Chereches, who take action against the perceived problems of their society.
The mayor built a wall in one Roma neighbourhood which he says was to keep children safe from a main road, and started to relocate 1,600 Roma from improvised buildings in Baia Mare’s “five pockets of poverty” — including the Craica slum — in June to the offices of a former copper factory, Cuprom.
The concrete wall, up to 1.8 metres high, is built on one side of a Roma neighbourhood of crumbling apartment blocks but because it links with other buildings and walls, it encloses the area with few access points. Built on an embankment, it appears much taller.
Those who have moved to the Cuprom offices, near the area with the wall, signed papers to agree, but others still in their old homes fear eviction. Chereches won 86 per cent of the vote in June’s local election, just days after the rehousing started.
“He’s done a great job by putting up the wall,” said Michael Szinn, a 74-year-old pensioner in the main Freedom Square. “Gypsy kids were on the streets before and threw stones at cars. Moving others to Cuprom is an even better thing for our city.”
Outbursts of anti-Roma sentiment are common across central Europe and hundreds of thousands have flooded western European cities since these countries joined the EU. According to police, many beg and are often involved in crime and trafficking rings.
A European Commission study showed one in four EU citizens would be uncomfortable with a Roma neighbour against six per cent if the neighbour was from a different ethnic group. Human Rights Watch says forced evictions are common across the EU.
“Policy-makers in Europe prefer to yield to, and in some cases exacerbate, public concerns at the expense of an unpopular minority rather than saying loud and clear that Europe’s values demand rights for all,” HRW said in its 2012 world report.
Support for Hungary’s far-right Jobbik has risen to 11 per cent, and in a sign that economic hardship is feeding radical nationalism, about 1,000 Hungarians attended the unveiling of a statue of World War Two head of state Miklos Horthy.
Anti-Roma riots broke out in Romania’s southern neighbour Bulgaria last year and a policeman went on a rampage shooting in Slovakia in June, killing three and wounding two Roma. Locals in one Slovak village built a wall around a Roma area.
In the Czech Republic, right-wing militants have staged marches where riot police had to prevent clashes. Recession has pushed many Roma to move to low-cost housing in the poorer north of the country and heightened tensions in areas with already high unemployment.
A deep recession, austerity and the perceived impunity of politicians have turned many Romanians away from mainstream parties. But support for militant groups r e mains low and charismatic figures like Chereches, a member of the governing Social Liberal Union [USL], can become focal points.
“Poverty, a sentiment of personal helplessness, lack of trust in political parties’ desire to fight crime are all boosting the danger of extremism. Individuals with extremist stances may benefit from that, not small party groups,” said Sergiu Miscoiu of the CESPRI think-tank in Cluj, some 150 km from Baia Mare.
“Roma Gypsies can easily become a new target blamed for most of society’s ills,” said Miscoiu. “Scapegoats like the Jews in World War Two.”
Baia Mare is an old mining city of 150,000 in a bucolic region 60 km south of the Ukrainian border. Like many Romanian urban centres recovering from the ravages of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Communist regime, it has its share of problems.
The dismantling of Communist-era industries meant many people, including Roma, were laid off and have since not been able to find new jobs. Many were forcibly moved out of Communist factories’ blocks by new owners when state assets were hastily sold 20 years ago.
The rehousing in Baia Mare has focused so far on a narrow stretch of land on its outskirts between a creek and an abandoned railway line, scattered with improvised huts made of clay, cardboard or plywood, some of which have been bulldozed.
About 980 Roma lived in Craica before the rehousing started in June. Some 100 families have so far been relocated t o three administrative buildings of the former plant.
“This is completely wrong. We need to find solutions that integrate, not segregate,” said Dezideriu Gergely of the European Roma Rights Centre. “There is a danger because dealing in such a manner with Roma issues only triggers the resentment and prejudices that already exist.”
Craica is a sharp contrast to the rest of the city, which has a well-preserved medieval centre generously dotted with gothic churches, cafes and artisan shops.
“It’s been a mess there at Craica without toilets, the Gypsies poop on the grass and have built huts of nylon,” said Szinn, the pensioner. “It’s a piggery, a mess. Our mayor has done something that nobody has ever done for our city.”
Some Roma from Craica work as garbage collectors for the municipality and some at a furniture plant. Most are jobless, seasonal labourers or eke out a living from selling scrap metal.
Living conditions are so grim that many of those who have been moved say they are thankful to Chereches, even though their new housing at the Cuprom offices leaves much to be desired, with only two bathrooms on each floor of several apartments.
“I lived in a single room with six children and my wife at Craica,” said 40-year-old Sandu, a seasonal construction worker rehoused to a small apartment with wooden furniture and an LCD television, bought with his own money. “My wife is jobless. I thank the mayor for giving me this place.”
Craica has no sewerage, indoor water or power supplies, and ramshackle huts lie between heaps of rubbish. Some residents admit to drawing electricity cables from nearby blocks. Even so, there are many who want to stay and are resisting being moved.
“I lived here for the last 20 years. My woman died here and I want to also die here,” said 59-year-old Trandafir Varga, one of the oldest residents and a community leader, surrounded by younger Roma who nodded their head in approval.
“There, we would be isolated. Here, we have horses, pigs,” Varga said. “It’s like a concentration camp there at Cuprom, we aren’t going there. We want to stay outdoors and cannot stay in blocks.”
Chereches maintains he is doing the best thing both for the Roma and other city residents. Eventually, he plans to offer rehoused families plots of land.
“The relocation is only a temporary solution. I envisage we build social, one-storey houses made of concrete with a small yard, and we would seek to place these buildings in several areas,” Chereches said.
“I only want to integrate those people. I don’t have anything to lose, I’m interested only in integrating them in a system based on three components: work, education and housing. That’s all.”
Source: Vancouver Sun
Lulica, the Roma doll →
Once upon a time, there was a little girl with a dark complexion and long, braided plaits, who used to wear many long and colorful skirts. The little girl wanted a doll, too. Fair-haired, red-haired, blue-eyed or Arabian dolls were on sale in the shop on the corner. They bore strange names like Barbie, Steffi, Ariel and Jasmine. The dolls had their own hairdresser’s, bikes, cars, baby pushchairs, and modern houses. They were doctors, models, princes or sirens. The little girl, whose name was Lulica and who lived in a shabby house, on the outskirts of the town, didn’t understand why none of the dolls in the shop window resembled her.
This may not be a real-life story, but the special doll, named Lulica, certainly is. It is an anti-discrimination doll, and was launched in Sibiu, central Romania, on the International Roma Day this year. Lulica is a doll who wears traditional clothes, specific to Roma women, has green eyes and long, plaited hair. The doll wears a red headscarf, decorated with gold coins. Dorin Cioaba, a leader of the Roma living in Sibiu, has told us about the idea of creating such a doll.
”We had the idea of creating this doll when we noticed the increasing demand for products specific to nomad and coppersmith Roma. I realized that we should promote our traditional Roma costumes, by launching a doll wearing such clothes. We’ve noticed that it was well received both by the Roma community, and by non-Roma kids. The doll bears my grandmother’s name, Lulica. She was a very beautiful woman, my grandfather took her away from her parents’ house without their consent, because they opposed their marriage.
There was a beautiful love story between Lulica and her husband, Baiculica. We thought that her unusual name would attract children. That is why we called the doll Lulica. Her features are specific to Roma women: it has long hair, traditional, plaited braids and golden coins sewn to her headscarf. We will soon launch another version of the doll, one with a traditional necklace made up of gold coins, called ‘salba’, and a textile bag, just like the Roma women used to wear. In time, we will create some more accessories for the doll, even a tent, which will serve as a sort of home, various elegant clothes, even a bride dress.”
The Roma who took part in the celebrations marking the World Roma Day threw wreaths of willow twigs in the waters of the Cibin River, to pay homage to those Roma killed during the Holocaust. This year marked the 41st anniversary of the first ceremony of this kind, which took place in London. Today, it is an opportunity to protest against discrimination of any kind. The peaceful protest took the shape of a doll. Dorin Cioaba has more on the Lulica doll and its launch.
”The first lot of 200 dolls has already been launched and now a much larger lot is under production. Roma women are sewing the costumes of the dolls almost around the clock, as we have never imagined that there will be such a high demand for dolls. So, we had to hire more dressmakers, from among the members of the Roma community. We are glad that we were able to offer them jobs: they sew many costumes, so that dolls may be available in all big shops, hypermarkets and specialized toy-shops. The doll was launched on April the 8th, the International Roma Day, and it was one of the highlights of our celebrations.
Many other cultural events were held on that day: Roma music concerts, dances and parties. All members of the community celebrated that day, in their own way. Those who like traditions best chose to spend the day within their community, others organized festivals in the countries they live in. However, the best way to celebrate was in the middle of the Roma community, because it is there that our interesting customs and traditions are best preserved.”
Why was it necessary to make an anti-discrimination doll? Here is Dorin Cioaba again:
”When I thought about launching this doll, I wanted Romanian children to have such a doll in their playroom, and make it easier for them to become friends with Roma children in real life. There is this fear instilled by mothers to their young children. They say: ‘if you do not behave yourself, the old gypsy woman will come, steal you and put you in her bag.’ Thus, children grow up with the idea that a woman wearing colorful clothes can only be evil. So in their teenage or adult life, they are reluctant to getting closer to such people.
This doll will be found in toy-shops and this can only be positive. Later in life, people will remember that they had such a doll when they were children, that there is a category of people in their country, which wear costumes just like the dolls they once had. This way, the new generations can build their relations with the Roma community on other principles. We will donate dolls to all kindergartens and daycare centers, because we want to promote our community, to show the young people who make up the majority that we have values and traditions, too, and to find ways to coexist harmoniously.”
Lulica, the doll wearing vivid colours, will become a friend for all children.
Bulgaria, Romania Romas better integrated in Spain: study (FOCUS Information Agency) →
Sofia. Roma from Bulgaria and Romania, often isolated in their own countries, integrate well in Spain and to a lesser degree in Italy, a new study showed Thursday, praising Spain’s successful policies, AFP reported.
The report by the Open Society institute found that 53 percent of Bulgarian Romas who had emigrated to Spain were employed, whereas at home the majority were jobless.
In Italy, 40 percent of Bulgarian Romas had work.
“Tolerance and sustainable integration policies, notably in Spain, lead to the successful integration of Romas,” Georgy Stoichev, head of Open Society’s Bulgarian branch, told a press conference Thursday.
Those in Spain worked mostly in agriculture, whereas in Italy they found jobs in the public and construction sectors.
On average, the rate of employment among Romas in the four countries studied — Bulgaria, Romania, Spain and Italy — was 37.4 percent, far below the 57.3-percent average for EU citizens.
Just six percent of Romas had a secondary education, compared to 67.2 among the EU population.
Living conditions were far worse in Romania and Bulgaria, where barely 20 percent of Roma had proper toilets, compared to 52 percent in Italy and 95 percent in Spain, the survey also showed.
Open Society noted a silver lining however: over the past four years, the number of Bulgarians who said they were prepared to work with Romas jumped from 29 to 44 percent.
This was even higher — at 60 percent — among those under 30.
A total 48 percent of Bulgarians also said they would not mind living in a neighbourhood with Romas, up from 32 percent previously.
Cohabitation had its limits however, with Stoichev noting that only 12 percent of people would be prepared to marry a Roma, unchanged from before.
The study was conducted in June 2011 among 4,800 Roma in Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Spain. It questioned 1,100 native Roma in each of the four countries, and another 400 Bulgarian and Romanian Roma who had emigrated to Spain and Italy.
Rehousing Romania’s Roma signals swing to extremes
BAIA MARE, Romania (Reuters) - Building a wall that closes in a Roma neighborhood and rehousing families in a dilapidated communist-era office block have earned Catalin Chereches accusations of racism.
But the actions have also helped the mayor of the northern Romanian town of Baia Mare to become the country’s most popular local politician and shown how central Europe’s lackluster economies and widespread poverty can trigger radical solutions.Chereches, 33, an urbane Vienna-educated economist, says he is trying to improve the lot of Baia Mare’s impoverished Roma. Rights groups counter that he is enclosing the population in ghettos and making the situation worse.
He says living conditions have improved by moving families away from a slum where naked children play in the dust with stray dogs and cats. But it still keeps Roma separate from other people and lacks space and bathrooms.
“It’s clear, conditions there are not similar to the Hilton or Marriott. But this doesn’t mean this is not a step forward towards their civilization and emancipation,” Chereches told Reuters in his tidy and modest office.
Roma is a term for various groups who have migrated across Europe for centuries and are now the biggest ethnic minority in the European Union, most of them from countries like Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. There are an estimated 10 million across Europe and one in five lives in Romania.
The vast majority live on the margins of society in abject poverty, which makes them easy targets in troubled times, and pro-democracy groups say post-communist governments in the region have not done enough to improve their plight.
“Moving people belonging to a single ethnic group together is called ethnic separation,” said Robert Vaszi, director of Roma rights group Asociatia Sanse Egale.
“This is breaching human rights.”
As central Europe’s economies flag in their attempts to catch up with western Europe, there are signs voters may be turning away from mainstream politics towards more radical groups, or moving to support those individuals, like Chereches, who take action against the perceived problems of their society.
The mayor built a wall in one Roma neighborhood which he says was to keep children safe from a main road, and started to relocate 1,600 Roma from improvised buildings in Baia Mare’s “five pockets of poverty” - including the Craica slum - in June to the offices of a former copper factory, Cuprom.
The concrete wall, up to 1.8 meters high, is built on one side of a Roma neighborhood of crumbling apartment blocks but because it links with other buildings and walls, it encloses the area with few access points. Built on an embankment, it appears much taller.
Those who have moved to the Cuprom offices, near the area with the wall, signed papers to agree, but others still in their old homes fear eviction. Chereches won 86 percent of the vote in June’s local election, just days after the rehousing started.
“He’s done a great job by putting up the wall,” said Michael Szinn, a 74-year-old pensioner in the main Freedom Square. “Gypsy kids were on the streets before and threw stones at cars. Moving others to Cuprom is an even better thing for our city.”
NEW SCAPEGOATS
Outbursts of anti-Roma sentiment are common across central Europe and hundreds of thousands have flooded western European cities since these countries joined the EU. According to police, many beg and are often involved in crime and trafficking rings.
A European Commission study showed one in four EU citizens would be uncomfortable with a Roma neighbor against six percent if the neighbor was from a different ethnic group. Human Rights Watch says forced evictions are common across the EU.
“Policymakers in Europe prefer to yield to, and in some cases exacerbate, public concerns at the expense of an unpopular minority rather than saying loud and clear that Europe’s values demand rights for all,” HRW said in its 2012 world report.
Support for Hungary’s far-right Jobbik has risen to 11 percent, and in a sign that economic hardship is feeding radical nationalism, about 1,000 Hungarians attended the unveiling of a statue of World War Two head of state Miklos Horthy.
The Gypsy in Me (NYTimes) →
The author in first grade.
By CRISTIANA GRIGORE
I am Roma, but for many years I denied my origins for fear of being called a Gypsy. I grew up in Romania, where one meaning of tigan — tzigane, Zigeuner, cigány, cigan, “Gypsy” in other European languages — is “a person who engages in harmful or illegal activities.” The name comes from a medieval Greek word that means “untouchable,” and derivatives — like “gypped” or “gypsy cab” — refer to stealing and cheating.
Roma face dire choice between slum and chemical plant →
BAIA MARE, Romania — Defiant Aurica Ciucur speaks for many in her Roma camp incensed by a local authority’s plans to relocate them to a former chemical factory forced to close over pollution concerns.
“They want to tear down my house and make me go away? Over my dead body!” said Ciucur, 54.
Dozens of people living at Craica, a shantytown on the outskirts of the northeastern Romanian city of Baia Mare, told AFP they would rather die than leave their clay or cardboard huts built alongside a disused railway.
Alexandru Varga settled here in the 1990s, when news of the closure of several factories in this old mining centre drew in hundreds of scrap iron scavengers.
“This is where I want to be buried,” said Varga, 63.
Several rights groups have accused local authorities in Baia Mare of violating the rights of Roma inhabitants by forcibly evicting hundreds and relocating them to an old copper-processing plant owned by Cuprom.
Environmental studies showed the factory was responsible for air and soil contamination, and it was shut down a few years ago.
“This is not a viable solution, it only makes the Roma dependant on local authorities but does not solve the issue of access to education and to employment,” said Gabriela Pop, head of a local Roma rights group, Together for Them.
But mayor Catalin Chereches, a member of the ruling USL who won a landslide victory in the June 10 local elections, brushed aside the criticism.
“Moving people to Cuprom is only temporary,” he told AFP.
“Next spring, the 1,600 Roma living in pockets of poverty in Baia Mare will all benefit from social housing, if the government agrees to finance the project,” he added.
He pleged that at least one member of each family will get a job, while children will go to school from September.
Chereches sparked a scandal last year when he built a concrete wall separating mainly Roma apartment blocs from a main road.
Romania counts up two two million Roma, most of whom are unemployed and have limited access to education and health care.
Despite the relocation row, many Roma at Craica said moving to Cuprom was an opportunity to emerge from the extreme poverty they live in.
When the excavator returned to the site to tear down some more ramshackle houses, several people timidly approached the clerk sent by the mayor to list the people ready to go.
“Can you put down no. 52 too?,” asked one young man.
“I want to leave Craica because my children are the laughing stock of everyone at school who knows they live here,” he told AFP.
At the far end of the shantytown, Geta Boros, 28, hastily gathers some pieces of furniture and some clothes, just before the excavator reduces her home to a pile of wood.
“I’m afraid living at Cuprom will be like being in jail, but what am I to do here, my neighbours have all gone,” she said.
As soon as the excavator is driven away, several men rush to gather the pieces of wood left behind.
“We’ll use it to heat ourselves next winter,” one of them said.
But the clerk, Ioan Dumitru, seems to know better. “Little by little, everyone will leave,” he says with a smile, adding: “As you can see, nobody is pressuring them.”
Maybe so, but several people complained that the authorities had cut their admittedly-illegal electricity connections and planned to deprive Craica of its only water source, so that even the most reluctant would have no choice but to leave.
Constantin Boldijar, 26, is among those who chose to move to Cuprom.
With his wife and four daughters he inspects the room they will share in “Block No. 3”, a building previously housing chemical labs.
“This is a hundred times better than Craica,” he said, even if works to sanitise the building are still under way, and some rooms have no windows.
“There’ll be no more microbes, lice or rats to bite our children”, said a father of two boys playing in the yard among the rubble.
Since the programme started on June 1, about a hundred families have moved into the three Cuprom buildings.
Electricity, water and heating will be free of charge, with the municipality footing the bills.
But Rodica, a 39-year-old mother of four, complained there was just one toilet on every floor and no kitchen.
The mayor stressed that families can go to a neigbouring compound built with European aid to take a shower, get a hot meal and enroll their children in a kindergarten. But food portions are limited to about 70 daily.
For Geta Boros, it is a case of grudgingly accepting the inevitable. She has to think of her children first: “They will be better off here.”
Roma relocations draw international ire →
The Roma community in the northwest mining area of Baia Mare is again subjected to controversial treatment. [Reuters]
The European Commission is the latest to criticise a decision by the mayor’s office in Baia Mare to move a small community of Roma onto the premises of a former copper mining company that was not entirely decontaminated. European Commissioner for the Human Rights, Latvia’s Nils Muiznieks, has asked the Romania government to respond to what he called “a flagrant human rights infringement.”
The criticism came after about 100 Roma families were moved into the building of the former Cuprom Company, which, until 2006 when it closed down, was the second largest polluter in Romania.
After the group was moved, 21 Roma, including many children, were taken to hospital due to contamination from bottles of toxic chemicals that were not removed.
The decision to relocate the families from the Craica neighbourhood came just a week before the June 10th local elections. Moving the Roma was a core campaign promise made by social-democrat Catalin Chereches. He was re-elected with a stunning 86% of the votes.
“I think the Romanian authorities should start a serious investigation to establish exactly what happened and who is responsible for those people’s health problems,” Muiznieks was quoted by Mediafax as saying.
The US Embassy in Bucharest expressed similar concerns. “The current situation constitutes a failure by the city authorities to provide basic protections to its citizens. It also contributes to the strong perception of willful discrimination towards the Roma community,” an embassy statement read.
The Anti-discrimination National Council said it was investigating the circumstances under which the families were moved.
Roma NGOs are outraged by the relocations. “We once again show Roma are treated as second-hand citizens, endangering their health and their civil rights,” Romani Criss, a leading NGO, said in a statement to SETimes.
The mayor’s office in Baia Mare defended its decision.Others expressed concern that such anti-Roma attitudes are spreading. “Moving the Roma … is just the latest manifestation of a policy of scorn towards the most elementary human rights, which is replicated in more and more settlements in Romania,” Diana-Olivia Hatnean, executive director of the human rights organisation Apador-CH, told SETimes.
“The relocation to Cuprom’s headquarters is a transitory measure until City Hall finishes the social neighbourhood it is building for the poor Roma,” Dan Coarda, spokesman of the Baia Mare City Hall, told SETimes. “What we aim to do is to eliminate the four poverty hotbeds in the city where the Roma live in improvised and dilapidated sheds.”
Coarda denied that the 100 families in Craica were forcibly moved and said social workers assisted with the relocation. Baia Mare City Hall hopes to finish moving the remaining 260 families left in the Craica neighbourhood by the end of the year.
Roma relocation scores Romania mayor a major vote win
BUCHAREST, June 14 (Reuters) - A Romanian mayor, criticised by rights groups for relocating Roma gypsy families and building a concrete wall to separate off a Roma neighbourhood, scored the biggest share of the vote in local elections, official data showed on Thursday.
Catalin Chereches, the incumbent 33-year-old mayor of Baia Mare, won 86 percent in Sunday’s election, which was held just days after local authorities relocated dozens of Roma families to the administrative buildings of a dismantled copper plant.
Rights groups have criticised Chereches’s policies and accused him of trying to set up a ghetto.
They say the construction of the 1.8 metre (six feet) high wall last year between a Roma neighbourhood and a main road amounted to institutional racism and the new housing for relocated families was of poor quality and lacked sufficient kitchens and bathrooms.
Chereches, a member of the ruling left-leaning Social Liberal Union alliance (USL) which won most of the votes in local elections, said the relocation was not discriminatory and was only a temporary solution.
“This is just the first step in a project that aims to become the way, at an European level, of integrating the Roma people,” Chereches told Reuters by telephone from Baia Mare in the far north of the country.
“It’s just for one to three years until we identify land plots for those people to build houses.”
MARGINS OF SOCIETY
About 620,000 Romanians describe themselves as Roma. Rights groups say many do not declare their background, some of them fearing discrimination, and the true number could be as high as 2.5 million. That would be the largest Roma community in Europe.
The vast majority live on the margins of society in abject poverty and pro-democracy groups say the state does not do enough to prevent discrimination.
Since Romania joined the European Union in 2007, hundreds of thousands of Roma have flooded European cities, complaining of racism and poverty at home.
The EU in May called on member states to do more to integrate their Roma populations and bring them closer to the economic and social mainstream.
Local Romanian media said authorities in Baia Mare began moving dozens of families in May from poor neighbourhoods where they had lived in 20-year-old improvised buildings with no water, sewage or power supplies.
“There must be a process in place that gives all residents the chance to participate in any decisions that will affect their lives, and allows for them to genuinely participate without fear, harassment or intimidation,” rights groups Amnesty International and Romani CRISS said in a statement.
Roma have a long history of being persecuted and during World War Two they were targeted by the Nazis. Although estimates vary, it is thought several hundred thousand died in concentration camps alongside millions of Jews.
France’s repatriation of Roma in 2010 prompted one European Union official to recall the Nazis’ persecution, overshadowed an EU summit and sparked a row between former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Earlier this month, French authorities dismantled a Roma camp on the banks of the river Garonne in Toulouse.
(Reporting by Radu Marinas; Editing by Sophie Hares)
Urgent: Close the Romanian ‘Death Plant’
A local Romanian mayor has just forcibly evicted over 38 Roma families from their accommodation — and is now forcing them to live in a toxic, decommissioned chemicals factory. Small children are already in hospital after chemical exposure, and the situation is so horrifying a respected Romanian newspaper is comparing this to Auschwitz. But the Romanian Prime Minister can stop this shocking treatment.
This factory ‘accommodation’ is still filled toxic remnants of the factory, shut down in 2005 and known locally as “The Death Plant”. Outrageously, Mayor Cătălin Cherecheș has joked that Roma are falling ill from the “cleanliness” of the factory. He’s hoping to win votes by appearing ‘tough’ on Roma ahead of an election on Sunday, but we can turn these horrible acts against him. The local Mayor is a member of the Prime Minister’s Social-Liberal Union, and if we pressure the PM Victor Ponta to speak out against this abuse, we can force the Mayor to close this death factory and re-house the victims.
As a Romanian, I’m deeply shocked by the way these people have been treated. But the new Romanian PM is looking to establish his credibility in Romania and Europe — so let’s make sure he does the right thing. Sign my petition to call on the PM to demand the Mayor apologize and re-accommodate these innocent Roma!There are currently only 392 signatures… I posted to Facebook, and now here and twitter. I hope we can get this thing blown out of the water.
Please help! SIGN HERE
Good job Tumblr folks! Now up to 688 signatures!! :) Keep spreading this please~! It’s important.
Romanian authorities leaving vulnerable families homeless says Amnesty →
Romania’s continuing economic challenges which have seen two governments fall in fewer than three months are all the more reason for the authorities at all levels to close legal loopholes that affect the housing of some of the country’s most marginalised groups, Amnesty International has said in a new briefing released on 4 May.
Jezerca Tigani, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Deputy Programme Director, said:“These gaps in the law have allowed local authorities forcibly to evict people from their homes without any safeguards including prior notification or adequate consultation. Often, the local authorities left people homeless.
“People who live in informal settlements plus social housing tenants who have not had their lease renewed have no legal protection and can be forcibly evicted from their homes at any moment. Such human rights violations are affecting the most vulnerable, very often Roma.
“The absence of fundamental legal protections and safeguards puts Romania directly in contempt of international standards on adequacy of housing and gives the green light to local authorities to put vulnerable families in even more appalling living conditions.
“No matter whether people rent, own or occupy their home or land without proper documentation, everybody is entitled to the same level of protection against forced evictions, harassment or other threats.
“The new Romanian government should model its housing law on the international standards that it has voluntarily accepted and ensure that the law guarantees adequate housing and related rights for everybody in the country.”
The new Amnesty International briefing, Unsafe foundations: Secure the right to housing in Romania, outlines key requirements under international law that must be complied with by governments to safeguard the right to housing, including a prohibition of forced evictions.
This briefing provides the Romanian government with a “housing law checklist” based on international standards that should serve as guidance for a legal reform that is long overdue.
The current law in Romania does not prohibit forced evictions. Nor does it prohibit housing relocations to areas which are unsafe and/or polluted, and which pose a risk to people’s lives and health.
It does not oblige authorities to provide public housing in locations which allow effective access to employment, healthcare services, schools, childcare facilities and other services.
Further, the current law does not expressly prohibit segregation in housing and does not provide adequate protection against this particularly pernicious form of discrimination.
Amnesty International has documented numerous cases of Romani communities being forcibly evicted and relocated to the outskirts of the cities; to overcrowded homes lacking access to essential services, and to isolated locations which present serious environmental and health risks.
On the freezing morning of 17 December 2010, 356 people, mostly Roma, who lived for years in Coastei Street in the centre of the city of Cluj-Napoca, were forcibly evicted without adequate notice or consultation. They were taken by truck with their belongings to new housing units in the Pata Rât area situated on a hill close to a landfill site and a chemical waste dump on the outskirts of the city.
On warm days, the smell of chemicals fills the air. Families – sizes of which vary between four and 11 people – were provided with one room of up to 18 square metres. Four rooms share a communal bathroom with only cold water.
About 30 of the evicted families were not offered any alternative accommodation. Some of them constructed improvised houses next to the existing units without access to electricity, water, or sanitation and at risk of new eviction.
Pata Rât is nine kilometres away from the city centre, it is not a residential area and transport is infrequent and expensive. The closest bus stop is 2.5 kilometres away, the closest school nine kilometres, and shopping centre 10 kilometres.
Coastei Street is not an isolated case of forced eviction where the authorities have violated their obligations under international law as a result of deficiencies in the Romanian law.
Roma Britain →
This is the blog of an independent documentary project about Roma migration and integration into British society by photographer and writer Ciara Leeming.
The work has developed out of a series of written stories published in 2010-11 by the Big Issue in the North, the Guardian and the Times Educational Supplement, and a collaborative book project,Elvira and Me.
Roma Britain is open ended and will develop organically. Eventually I hope it will bring together a series of smaller projects which are participatory in nature, and use photography, words and audio to challenge some of the common stereotypes of Roma.
Funding from Arts Council England and a Homelands Commission from Side Gallery in Newcastle is allowing me to expand this work. Support for the Elvira project came from the Lipman-Miliband Trust and the Big Issue in the North Trust.
For more info please see www.ciaraleeming.co.uk or email info@ciaraleeming.co.uk. An interview with me about this work can also be found here.
I now have some hard copies of Elvira and Me to sell. Please contact me for details.
Visit the website Roma Britain by Ciara Leeming
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