džulory ladžala

diaryofaromanifilmmaker:

Forget about wanting to become a Gypsy* like all the other girls, I want to be a Showman.

*O wait I already am a Gypsy on account of having been BORN one. 

*laptop is now wearing the 2012 “Woodchuck Hard Cider limited edition case”…*

I hear it so much—how Canadians have it the best; how Canada has the best health care and the best education (hello, protests?) and how it’s a northern Utopia we should all run to embrace…

I will not run to Canada. I will never run to Canada.

It is not some utopian dream. It is flawed and broken and tottering on the edge of making some very dangerous decisions. 

For example, Bill 31-C that is currently seeking passage will “speed up” refugee claims by allowing the minister of immigration to designate any country as safe. Immigrants from these countries will be immediately deported with no right to appeal.

This bill is largely aimed at Hungarian and other European refugees—the majority of which are Roma. Considering the amount of right-wing extremism and neo-Nazi activity in these countries (Hungary is not alone—the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and others are facing a similar rise in anti-Roma activity), they should not be regarded as “safe” for Roma to return to.

Not only that, but currently the Canadian government is cutting health care provisions for refugees. Previously all refugees were covered—but now the coverage will be dependent on their immigration status. 

While certain categories of refugee claimants will receive some basic care, others will receive only “urgent and essential” care or care that is needed to protect public health, while the dental, vision and prescription benefits will no longer be provided to any refugees.

This means that any refugees who are currently receiving treatment or medications will be cut off permanently, and will have to pay for any treatment they receive themselves. The dental and vision plans do not cover cosmetic or “Cadillac” services, but rather basic services like alleviating dangerous infections or other problems and allowing a person to “even begin to function in society” (Dr. Robert Sutherland, President of the Canadian Dental Association—Ottawa Citizen, 2012).

What the hell Canada? It is easy to see the link between this plan and the other (Bill 31-C) and it is no stretch of the imagination to see who these changes are aimed at:

The Roma.

If there has been an influx of refugee claims (such as the almost tripling of claims from Hungarian Roma) surely it is better to look at the cause of this rather than simply declaring Hungary “safe” and shipping these people back? But, of course, the government in Canada is white; the government in Hungary (and indeed the EU) is white. They have a nice little buddy system going on—supposed adherence to Human Rights Laws, Trade Laws, and others. To admit that there is a problem in such a country as Hungary, means to admit there is a problem with the system…

and Lord forbid that we ever admit there is a problem with the system.

Dear Mr Nohavica,

I would like to thank you for the many pretty little songs you have written which I love and sing often. My children (I have four) also know some of them. They sing them at home or when they go camping with the Scouts.

That is why I was really sorry to first hear your song “Vaši Bedřišku” and now your new one, “Dežo”. I will not be singing them to my children. I very much hope they never hear them, which unfortunately will probably not come to pass. It will be very difficult for me to explain to them why you recorded those songs and why you are playing them for people.

Two of my children are Romani. During their brief lives (they are 8 and 10 years old) they have already experienced a great deal. They were forcibly taken away from their mother the moment they were born because she wasn’t living in acceptable housing. For several years, the only cuddling they got on the iron beds they slept on in the state institution were from piles of stuffed animals. At school, other children cursed them. When they walked down the street, adults whom they had never seen in their lives, who were complete strangers to them, cursed them as well. They have been subjected to false allegations.

My children (the older one is a boy and the younger one is a girl), despite all this, still believe me when I tell them they can be proud of themselves, that they will succeed in achieving something in life, that they will do the work they long to do, that all they have to do is to study well at school. They get nothing but the highest grades, both of them.

As their mother - which I am with all my heart, even though I did not give birth to them - it is becoming more and more difficult to answer their questions. I feel I am deceiving them when I tell them that what matters is not what you look like, but what you are like inside.

My children believe in justice. They believe the guilty should be punished. They believe the truth should be spoken and written.

My children are Romani and their innocent confidence will last only a few years longer before life shows them that what their mother taught them was naive nonsense. Life will show them that whatever they do, everyone will consider them “just gypsies” who steal sewer grates and live on welfare, and that it is best to keep their distance from them. Public opinion is a bitch.

Mr Nohavica, PLEASE, do not pour fuel onto a fire that is burning out of control and will injure the innocent one day. That fire is already burning my children, who suspect nothing at this moment as they sleep peacefully in the next room.

With respect,

Martina Vančáková

translated by Gwendolyn Albert

ROMEA

The high court has ruled that news broadcasters including the BBC, ITN and Sky News do not have to hand over footage of the Dale Farm eviction to police.

In a ruling handed down at the high court on Thursday morning, Mr Justice Eady said broadcasters did not have to disclose unbroadcast footage of the eviction to Essex police.

The judge said that the police need clear evidence of criminality when applying for production orders against the media.

Broadcasters including BBC, Sky News and ITN – the producer of ITV News, Channel 4 News and 5 News – won the right to a judicial review after they were told by Chelmsford Crown court to hand hours of footage of the Dale Farm eviction in October last year over to the police.

In his judgment on Thursday, Eady said that the Chelmsford Court decision failed to give any sufficient weight to the inhibiting effect of production orders on the press.

The ruling marks a significant victory for the media, which has campaigned strongly against being forced to disclose unbroadcast footage.

Broadcasters warned they would be seen as an extra arm of the state if they passed unaired footage to the police.

Eady said in his judgment: “The interference caused by such orders cannot and should not be dismissed mainly because a small proportion of that which is filmed maybe published.

“The judge should have feared for the loss of trust in those hitherto believed to be neutral observers if such observers maybe too readily compelled to hand over their material. It is the neutrality of the press which affords them protection and augments their ability freely to obtain and disseminate visual recording of events.”

Eady and Lord Justice Moses described as scattergun and speculative the attempt by Essex police to obtain more than 100 hours of broadcast and unbroadcast footage from the media groups.

The ruling also applied to Hardcash, the independent producer behind a BBC Panorama documentary on Dale Farm, and Jason Parkinson, the freelance journalist who filmed an Essex police officer using a stun gun against a Traveller during the eviction.

Eady and Moses said that production orders should only be granted if there was cogent evidence of how important the unbroadcast footage would be in a police investigation.

Parkinson said he was “very happy” with Thursday’s ruling because it recognised the impact production orders have on the “safety and impartiality of all journalists”.

“This ruling to overturn the crown court’s decision to grant the Dale Farm production order sends a very clear message to all police forces that these wide-ranging fishing trips will not be accepted by the UK courts and that we will not be forced into the role of unwilling agents of the state.

“We are not there as evidence gatherers to fill police intelligence databases with hours of material on activists or protestors. We are journalists and we are there to report the news and keep the public informed.

“In the last 18 months, every time one of these orders have been served it has put journalists in greater danger while trying to report on public order situations. I know this because I have been threatened and assaulted by people claiming my material will be used by the police. I am very happy to see [the high court] has recognised the impact these orders have on the safety and impartiality of all journalists and has made sure any future production order applications must take this into account, as was clearly not the case this time round.”

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “Today is a huge victory for the cause of press freedom and the protection of sources and journalistic material.

“We are incredibly pleased that the NUJ and other media organisations have won the high court battle against the police production order to force journalists to hand over their Dale Farm eviction footage.”

TheGuardianOnline

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.

This is a headline from a Romanian newspaper website, reporting on the “dozens of homeless Romanian Gypsies” that have “invaded” parts of London, but especially the prestigious Park Lane area.

The problem with this? It isn’t that these people are forced to sleep on the street, beg for money, or live in horrific conditions… it isn’t that they fled their own country because of persecution, discrimination, and abject poverty.

No, the worst thing is that, as the Romanian article stated, “Există, de asemenea, temerea că prezenţa taberei ar putea umbri desfășurarea Jocurilor Olimpice, în contextul în care unor demnitari străini le-au fost rezervate camere în hoteluri din apropiere” — translated this says that “there is also some concern their presence could overshadow the development of the Olympic camp, since some foreign dignitaries have been reserved rooms in hotels nearby”….

Once again it is not concern for Roma people that is driving this, but rather concern for a certain “White image”. The cleanliness of the city does not just deal with actual trash of the streets—but apparently too with the figurative trash also.

Trebuie să ridicăm tot gunoiul - e oribil. - We must pick up all the garbage -it’s horrible.

This has been a common theme with regard to the Olympics. The thought of people as garbage—poor people, homeless people, immigrants, whole neighbourhoods. It’s not the first time—but isn’t this also a form of racism? Why is it OK to call people trash simply because swanky foreign dignitaries are arriving? Surely it would be better to aid these people, give them some shelter, food, warmth, and prospects? I thought the idea behind the Olympics was somewhat… bigger… than this.

The Olympics are founded on principles such as ethics, participation, and equality (it is not between nations, but between athletes and all athletes are treated equally)…

So, how is it that we can treat the citizens of the participating countries as trash??? How can we say these people are invading anywhere?? Scaremongering and discriminating because of who these people are and where they came from…

diaryofaromanifilmmaker:

Pipopotamus: Sun, Sex and Gypsy Hookers

Here we are in May in a supposed drought, the weather is cold, dull and depressing and we are counting down the months, weeks and days until that holiday abroad. We booked it twelve months ago and have since spent countless hours on Google, looking for reviews of the resort we paid so much to visit. Mr and Mrs Smith have just got back after a wonderful week in the sun. The alcohol was cheap, the food was great but ‘watch out for those gypsy beggars’.  Dave and co have had an insane fortnight partying hard. The best clubs in the world, sun, sea, sand and a lot of shagging but guys, ‘beware of the gypsy hookers’.  

Take, for instance, the Sunny Beach resort in Bulgaria. A quick Google search provided me with the following reviews:

“…those gipsies are to be found on the central alley of Sunny Beach…they run to you offering you sex, and by the time you realize it, your wallet is gone”

 “The cheapest prostitutes are on the road to Sunny beach (mostly young gypsies girls)”

Indeed, 70 per cent of Bulgaria’s prostitutes are reportedly Roma, which is hardly surprising giving that 84 per cent of Bulgaria’s Roma population live in poverty.  Yet to me, a Romany boy brought up in the UK, I do find it shocking.  You would be hard pressed to find a British Romany prostitute, as sex before marriage and extramarital sex are so deeply frowned upon, however while Britain’s Romany population are the victims of social exclusion, their situation in no way mirrors the distressing situation of the Roma across Europe. 

Driving through Bulgaria last Christmas, it saddened me to see Roma girls lining the side of the motorway waiting for clients. To me it is a sad reflection of the deep and historic hatred for the Romani people, which has ultimately triggered the extreme poverty and exclusion which leads to prostitution. Yet, when we look at reviews for ‘Sunny Beach’, or indeed any other resort across Europe, does anyone stop to think why these ‘gypsy hookers’ are ‘harassing’ tourists?  

The majority of these girls will have been forced into prostitution. In Bulgaria, they are more than likely under the control of criminal gangs composed largely of ethnic Bulgarians, rather than Roma men. Not only are Roma girls subjected to forced prostitution within Bulgaria itself, but are often trafficked to countries such as the Czech Republic, Germany and the Netherlands. Indeed, the trafficking of Roma woman is an international problem, with girls being lured from deprived areas with the promise of employment or marriage abroad, only to be forced into prostitution upon their arrival. 

The sexual exploitation of Roma woman goes greatly unreported, and the plight of these young women appears to go unnoticed, but is this because these women are Roma or because they are prostitutes? I argue that these women suffer not only from the stigma of being prostitutes, but of being Roma as well. Instead of being outraged at those who traffic them, people show disgust at the ‘dirty gypsies’ - an ethnic group who are being persecuted and abused. If we take a look at the video ‘Bulgarian gipsy hookers hunting down victims’, there are very little if any comments about the trafficking of Roma woman, but many showing their repulsion: 

“i think they are even worser then black ppl. Atleast black ppl do something for the world. What did a gipsy EVER did for the world”

“You can smell their filthy disgusting cunts just walking by.. I wouldnt fuck them if you paid me.”

“Those fuckin foreigners should go to live to Stolipinovo or gypsis ghettos. FUCK GYPSIES!!FUCK “HUMAN RIGHTS” ORGANISATIONS!!”

Still, despite the lack of compassion for these victims of sexual exploitation, there is something that goes even more unreported – the prostitution of Roma males.  In astudy of Romanian and Bulgarian male prostitutes working in Germany, it was reported that Romani males were over represented. Indeed, the 2012 documentary ‘Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo’, features three heterosexual Roma men working as prostitutes in Berlin, in order to provide for their families in Romania. What is more, there have been cases of underage Roma boys being forced into prostitution. 

Sadly, there has been very little research into the sexual exploitation of Roma men, thus what we do know is likely only to be the tip of the iceberg.  This reflects a worrying yet widespread tendency for society to overlook and disregard the sexual abuse of men.  When we talk about human trafficking, sexual exploitation and rape, it seems that attention is focused almost exclusively on women. Patriarchal culture has appeared to make us almost unwilling to see men as ‘victims’, and only as perpetrators. The consequences of such attitudes are hugely damaging, with the majority of sexual assaults against men going unreported. 

Out of 135 organisations for survivor s of sexual abuse and rape in the UK, just 7 provide services specifically for men.  Duncan Craig, founder and Service Director forSurvivors Manchester, and a survivor himself, said:

“The sexual exploitation and abuse of boys and men is so often ignored, it’s like society doesn’t want to accept that it happens. When we have a government that focuses on the ‘Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) agenda, it negates the harm caused to boys and men which silences the issue even more”

 “Survivors Manchester is committed to breaking the silence of the sexual abuse and rape of boys and men. By providing a safe space, we work to help males be empowered to work through the legacy issues and begin making positive and healthy choices based on the present and not the past”

“Since we started in 2009, we have struggled to secure funding from local and central government. The sexual exploitation and rape of males is an issue that not many people want to be associated with, which makes fundraising increasingly difficult too. We’ve even been accused of trying to take money away from women’s services!”

The lack of support, for male survivors of sexual abuse and rape, in a so called equal and pioneering British society, brings very little promise for the Roma men enduring sexual exploitation across Europe. The portrayal of Romany men in the media has been somewhat unfavourable. We are portrayed as misogynists, fighters, criminals, con men, slave masters and pimps. While Romany woman have their gender on their side, Romany men have to contend with chauvinist stereotypes which do very little to highlight the plight of those who are trafficked and exploited.  

The exploitation of any group of society is unethical, yet it seems unjust that the Roma, who are already the most deprived ethnic minority in Europe, are being abused in such inconceivable ways. While there are organisations campaigning for the rights of exploited Roma woman and children, I fear the exploitation of Roma males, and indeed all males, will remain hidden and unchallenged. We are fortunate that, in the UK, there are services, such as Survivors Manchester, who are dedicating their time to helping men who have survived sexual abuse.  My only hope is that these services can be amplified, both nationally and internationally and that all survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation, whether male, female, Roma or non Roma, can have equal access, and equal chances of regaining control of their lives.

Christos Tsaprounis is running the Bupa Great Manchester Run for Survivors Manchester. Every donation, whether a penny or a pound, can change the life of a male survivor. Please help Survivors Manchester keep their vital services running and donate today! Thank you.