USA has expressed “major concern” regarding discrimination against Roma in Romania.
In its annual “Human Rights Report” about Romania issued recently, US Department of State says: “Roma faced persistent poverty and had poor access to government services, few employment opportunities, high rates of school attrition, inadequate health care, and pervasive discrimination.”
The US report talks about police brutality, pervasive societal discrimination, anti-Roma slogans and banners, destruction of houses and cars and setting a house on fire in Roma community in Sanmartin and Roma taking refuge in woods, setting fire to several stables belonging to Roma in Sancraieni, anti-Roma messages on a politician’s blog, denial of access or refusal of service to Roma in many public places including bars/clubs, repeated refusal of a doctor in Vartop village to treat Roma patients, likelihood of ethnic Roma to live below the poverty line five times as compared to majority population, large exclusion from administrative and legal system, 4.9 percent of Roma lacking birth certificate, lack of identity cards excluding many Roma from various programs, inadequate and ineffective government assistance to the Roma, etc.
Report also refers to non-completion of high school by 95 per cent Roma; 23 percent illiteracy among Roma; discrimination by teachers and other students against Romani students; reports of Romani children being placed in the back of classrooms and of teachers ignoring Romani students and of unimpeded bullying of Romani students by other schoolchildren; placing of Romani students in separate classrooms from other students or in separate schools; school segregation cases in Albeni, Corabia, Cugir, and Polovraci; refusal by a kindergarten teacher in Magheru to enrol the twins of a Romani woman for several years; etc.
It also mentions a report which said that approximately 60 percent of Roma lived segregated from the majority population in communities with substandard housing and without basic governmental services, such as schools, adequate health care, running water, electricity, and waste disposal. “Stereotypes and use of discriminatory language against Roma were widespread; journalists and even high ranking officials frequently made discriminatory statements”, it adds.
The Romani population was estimated at between 1.8 and 2.5 million in Romania by this report.
*Article provided by Rajan Zed. The version on this blog is edited, by me, for brevity and clarity.
Showing posts with label Romania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romania. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Roma families forced into metal cabins beside sewage in Romania
In central Romania over 100 Roma were forced to live in metal cabins behind sewage works after forcibly evicted from their homes, as reported by Amnesty International.
According to this report titled “Treated like waste”, which was posted on January 26 on Amnesty website, many of these included families with children. Report quotes Erszebet, who lives next to the sewage treatment plant with her husband and nine children, and who told Amnesty International what life was like in a metal cabin: “It is tight, when the whole family goes to sleep we don’t fit in. We cannot take a bath; we cannot clean ourselves. It is too small. We don’t want the older girls to take a bath in front of their father.”
Rajan Zed, well-known Hindu statesman; and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA; in a statement issued in Nevada on January 27th, 2010, said that it was shocking to see how inhumanely Romania and Europe were treating their Roma brothers-sisters who were there since about ninth century AD. It was clearly reprehensible, hazardous and immoral, and a blatant failure of Romania and Europe to meet the international obligations.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, and Rabbi Freirich urged the religious leaders of Romania to openly and strongly condemn this maltreatment of Roma as religions told us to raise the voice for the helpless. They stressed immediate end to forced evictions and guaranteed right to housing to Roma.
According to Amnesty, there are about 2.2 million Roma in Romania – making up about 10 per cent of the total population. As a result of widespread discrimination, both by public officials and society at large, 75 per cent of Roma live in poverty, as opposed to 24 per cent of Romanians and 20 per cent of ethnic Hungarians.
Entertainer Madonna was reportedly booed and jeered by thousands of fans in Romania in August last when she sympathized with Roma people and spoke against Roma discrimination during her concert in Bucharest.
Rajan Zed and Jonathan Freirich pointed out that alarming condition of Roma people, numbering around 15-million in Europe, was a social blight for Europe and the rest of the world as they reportedly regularly faced social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, language barriers, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, racist slogans on Internet, etc.
It was like an undeclared apartheid and it was almost total societal exclusion of Roma. The maltreatment of Roma was outside even the European Union norms. Roma issue should be one of the highest priorities of human rights agenda of Europe and world, Rajan Zed and Rabbi Jonathan Freirich argued.
--Article Courtesy of Rajan Zed
***
I think the article speaks for itself. Yikes. This horrific treatment of Roma must end now. Here is a video on the matter from the Amnesty website.
And here is the report from Amnesty: click here.
And click here for a great blog called Lolo Diklo: Rroma Against Racism. Definitely check it out. It has great information, photos, and videos. All in all, very informative.
According to this report titled “Treated like waste”, which was posted on January 26 on Amnesty website, many of these included families with children. Report quotes Erszebet, who lives next to the sewage treatment plant with her husband and nine children, and who told Amnesty International what life was like in a metal cabin: “It is tight, when the whole family goes to sleep we don’t fit in. We cannot take a bath; we cannot clean ourselves. It is too small. We don’t want the older girls to take a bath in front of their father.”
Rajan Zed, well-known Hindu statesman; and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA; in a statement issued in Nevada on January 27th, 2010, said that it was shocking to see how inhumanely Romania and Europe were treating their Roma brothers-sisters who were there since about ninth century AD. It was clearly reprehensible, hazardous and immoral, and a blatant failure of Romania and Europe to meet the international obligations.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, and Rabbi Freirich urged the religious leaders of Romania to openly and strongly condemn this maltreatment of Roma as religions told us to raise the voice for the helpless. They stressed immediate end to forced evictions and guaranteed right to housing to Roma.
According to Amnesty, there are about 2.2 million Roma in Romania – making up about 10 per cent of the total population. As a result of widespread discrimination, both by public officials and society at large, 75 per cent of Roma live in poverty, as opposed to 24 per cent of Romanians and 20 per cent of ethnic Hungarians.
Entertainer Madonna was reportedly booed and jeered by thousands of fans in Romania in August last when she sympathized with Roma people and spoke against Roma discrimination during her concert in Bucharest.
Rajan Zed and Jonathan Freirich pointed out that alarming condition of Roma people, numbering around 15-million in Europe, was a social blight for Europe and the rest of the world as they reportedly regularly faced social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, language barriers, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, racist slogans on Internet, etc.
It was like an undeclared apartheid and it was almost total societal exclusion of Roma. The maltreatment of Roma was outside even the European Union norms. Roma issue should be one of the highest priorities of human rights agenda of Europe and world, Rajan Zed and Rabbi Jonathan Freirich argued.
--Article Courtesy of Rajan Zed
***
I think the article speaks for itself. Yikes. This horrific treatment of Roma must end now. Here is a video on the matter from the Amnesty website.
And here is the report from Amnesty: click here.
And click here for a great blog called Lolo Diklo: Rroma Against Racism. Definitely check it out. It has great information, photos, and videos. All in all, very informative.
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