view in one page and print
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/26/france.roma/index.html?iref=allsearch
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 27, 2010 12:18 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Two chartered planes carrying almost 300 Romanian nationals left France on Thursday in compliance with the French government's program to expel Roma without valid identity papers, according to the French Ministry of Immigration.
Around 300 Roma of Romanian origin arrived Thursday in Bucharest after being expelled from France.
One flight, carrying 113 Roma, departed from Lyon; the other, carrying 157, left from Paris.
The passengers aboard both planes were repatriated voluntarily, accepting financial compensation of 300 euros ($381) per adult and 100 euros ($127) per child.
Almost 8,300 Romanian and Bulgarian nationals have now been expelled from France since the beginning of the year. Close to 10,000 were expelled in 2009.
French officials have said the deportations are part of a broader crackdown on illegal immigration. Additional chartered flights are scheduled for September 14 and 30.
Over the past month, the French government has dismantled 51 Roma camps that it called illegal.
"Over there, they were giving us food, money ... salary. Life is much better out there -- happier," Mariana Serban, a mother of four, recently told Romania's Realitatea TV.
She told the reporter she did not work in France, and smiled when the reporter pointed out France would not give them any more money.
"That's what they say now, but they will give us money again," Serban said.
Serban's oldest son, Alexandru, 12, spoke in French as he told the TV station, "It's much better in France. I'm here [in Romania] now for a visit, and I will leave again. I'm staying here for two days only."
The comments by the returning Roma may dash any French hopes that they will resume their former lives in Romania.
"They will go and meet their parents and other relatives, and after that they will return to France, I'm telling you," Adrian Edu, an expert on Roma issues with the Bucharest City Hall, told PRO TV.
Roma are a group of people who live mainly in southern and eastern Europe, often in poverty. Commonly referred to as Gypsies, they tend to live in camps, caravans, or informal settlements and have been the target of persecution throughout history.
Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a statement last week that his country would try to find a solution to the French situation.
"We understand the problems Roma camps create around French cities, and we will work with France to find suitable solutions," he said.
Roma from Romania and Bulgaria are allowed free passage into France if they are European Union citizens. After that, however, they must find work, start studies, or find some other way of becoming established in France or risk deportation.
Two Romanian secretaries of state plan to be in Paris on August 30 to discuss the integration of Roma populations, the French Foreign Ministry said. It said Paris favors the social integration of the Roma in Romania.
_______________________________
Roma in Europe: Persecuted and misunderstood
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 19, 2010 1:39 p.m. EDT
Paris, France (CNN) -- This week, France began deporting members of the Roma population as part of what it says is a crackdown on illegal immigration. It has put the focus back on the Roma, who remain widely misunderstood despite being one of Europe's largest minorities.
Roma (Gypsy) Girl
Roma (Gypsy) Family
Who are the Roma?
Roma, also called Gypsies or Romany, are a group of people marked by poverty who live mainly in southern and eastern Europe, though they live throughout the continent. They tend to live in camps, caravans, or informal settlements and have been persecuted throughout history.
Some are Christian and some are Muslim, having converted while migrating through Persia and the Balkans, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Most Roma speak dialects of a language called Romani, which is based on Sanskrit, the classical language of India, the museum says. The language is largely unwritten, however, because of the high rates of illiteracy in most Roma communities, according to information from Minnesota State University.
Where did the Roma come from?
Roma originated in the Punjab region of northern India as a nomadic people and entered Europe between the 8th and 10th centuries, according to the Holocaust museum. They were called Gypsies because Europeans mistakenly believed they came from Egypt.
Many Roma traditionally worked as craftsmen and were blacksmiths, cobblers, tinsmiths, horse dealers, and toolmakers, according to the museum. Others were performers like musicians, circus animal trainers, and dancers. By the 1920s, some were also working as shopkeepers or civil servants.
The number of nomadic Roma was on the decline in many places by the early 1900s, though many "sedentary" Roma often moved seasonally, depending on their occupations, the museum says.
Where did the Roma go in Europe?
Roma were living in Spain, France, England, and large parts of what is today Russia and Eastern Europe by the late 1400s. They suffered persecution in those countries ranging from laws against their language and dress to expulsion, according to Minnesota State. In the beginning of the 15th century, many Roma were forced into slavery by Hungarian and Romanian nobles who needed laborers for their large estates, according to the university.
Roma suffered persecution during World War II. The Nazis judged Roma to be "racially inferior," according to the Holocaust museum. "Their fate in some ways paralleled that of the Jews," the museum said. The Nazis subjected Roma to internment, forced labor, and murder.
"While exact figures or percentages cannot be ascertained, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed around 25 percent of all European Roma," the museum says. "Of slightly less than 1 million Roma believed to have been living in Europe before the war, the Germans and their Axis partners killed up to 220,000."
What is the situation for Roma in Europe today?
Many Roma live on the edges of communities or are transient. They suffer massive discrimination throughout Europe, according to Amnesty International, and are often the victims of forced evictions, racist attacks and ill-treatment by police, and are often denied their rights to housing, employment, health care and education.
In Slovakia, thousands of Roma children are placed in special schools and classes designed for pupils with "mild mental disabilities" or in ethnically segregated mainstream schools and classes that provide a substandard education, Amnesty says.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern last year about a wave of attacks on Roma in Kosovo, and the United Nations pointed to mounting racial violence in Russia in 2008 that targeted Roma and other ethnic and religious minorities.
In June 2009, there was a series of attacks on Roma families in Northern Ireland, where the Roma had gone for work.
In Bosnia, Roma are barred from running for president or the upper chamber of Parliament.
The Budapest, Hungary-based European Roma Rights Center sent a letter of concern to Danish authorities last month about the recent mass arrest and deportation of 23 Roma in Copenhagen. They said Danish officials, including the mayor of Copenhagen and the country's justice minister, had made comments blaming the Roma for crimes.
A U.N. report last year cited the cost of deprivation among the Roma. In Bulgaria, it said, their life expectancy is five to six years below the rest of the population and their infant mortality rate is six times the national average. In Hungary, infant mortality among the Roma is nearly four times the country's average, and in Romania it is two and a half times greater, according to the report.
____________________________________________________________________________
Leave a comment
(if you having troubles, try posting your comment on this page or send an email to chronicle @ itbhuglobal.org)Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP