HUNGARY: Visiting Tiszavasvari...The Capital Of Right Wing Activists...And Scourge Of The Roma.

BBC/ N. Thorpe 

BBC: "Far-right activists have built up support in Hungary and are now taking the law into their own hands - prompting accusations that they are stirring racial hatred.

Tiszavasvari is the "capital" of the radical right-wing Jobbik party - on the faultline of ethnic tensions between the Roma minority and the non-Roma majority.

It has a Jobbik mayor who talks of "gypsy crime" and has set up a uniformed vigilante group in response, putting the party on collision course with both civil-rights groups and the conservative Fidesz government."

HUNGARY: 28 APRIL UPDATE: 7 Arrested After Vigilantes Brawl With Roma In Gyongyospata; At least 4 Injured.

LINK CHANGE/Politics.Hu

   Dozens of people got caught-up in a brawl between far-right vigilantes and Roma in the village of Gyongyospata.
   Seven have been arrested.
   At least four were injured in the clash, one seriously.
   Tensions have grown since last week when almost 300 Roma women and children were removed from the village because vigilantes were training nearby.
    The melee started after CCTV footage showed a drunken man urinating near a street inhabited by Roma. Then a group of about 50 equipped with hand tools got into a fight with four men,  vigilantes called Vedero/"Defensive Strength".

ROMANIA: Roma Culture Evolves As Attitudes About Education Change.

AP/ LATIMES / George Jahn:
    There are some signs that future generations of Roma may be allowed to choose education instead of early marriage and thus escape poverty on the fringes of society.
   "No statistics exist on the number of underage girls forced into illegal marriage-like arrangements among Eastern Europe's more than 5 million Roma. But a 2008 Romanian report says that 55% of Gypsies had their first pregnancy while under 18, compared with 14% of non-Gypsy Romanians."
   A 2006 UN survey of southeast Europe reported that 2 in 3 Roma did not finish primary school and 2 in 5 didn't even start school. One in 4 was illiterate and just 8% had completed secondary school or above.

SPAIN: While The EU Debates Roma Problem, Madrid Has A Successful Model.

NYTIMES/ SUZANNE DALEY and RAPHAEL MINDER /

    Not all the EU nations have neglected the Roma people and are expelling them or considering it as France recently did to more than 2,000.
   The treatment is markedly different in Spain.
   After more than 30 years, government programs to help the more than 700,000 Gypsies there are showing signs of success.
     Virtually all young Gypsy children are in elementary school. Nearly half of their parents own their own homes. And many are holding down regular jobs,not traditional Gypsy livelihoods like selling cattle and other goods.
   Spain is so successful that it now serving as a model.

EUROLAND/ROMANIA: As Own Governments Ignore Them, Roma Test EU Borders...And Nerves.

NYTIMES/ SUZANNE DALEY :    "Migration within the 27 nations of the European Union has become a combustible issue during the economic downturn. The union’s latest expansion, which brought in the relatively poor nations of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, has renewed concern that the poor, traveling far from home in search of work, will become a burden on wealthier countries. The migration of the Roma is also raising questions about the obligations of Romania and Bulgaria to fulfill promises they made when they joined the union. Romania, for instance, mapped out a strategy for helping the Roma, but financed little of it. Mr. Sarkozy has demanded that the Romanian government do more to aid the Roma at home."

AND: “There is nothing to focus the minds of policy makers like an army of poor people heading your way,” said Bernard Rorke, the director of Roma Initiatives for the nonprofit Open Society Foundation.

For a report on Roma living and working conditions in Romania, SEE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/17/roma-france-dreams-better-life

SLOVAKIA: 1ST UPDATE: Shooter Kills 7, Wounds 15, Takes Own Life In Bratislava.

LINK CHANGE/ GUARDIAN/ 31 Aug/  
  A 48-year-old man armed with a machine gun and 2 handguns killed 7 and wounded 15, including a child in an apartment near Bratislava before committing suicide. Among the dead were at least five members of a Roma family who lived in the Bratislava apartment block where the man began the attack.

ROMANIA: An Opinion About The Roma Repatriation From France.

BBC/ OPINION/ GAVIN HEWITT/
HEWITT: "It is the view of the French president that begging is part of a wider deeper problem involving some of the Roma. He believes that illegal Roma camps on the edge of French cities are a linked to serious crime. The Elysee Palace explained that the Roma camps were "sources of illegal trafficking, profoundly shocking living standards, the exploitation of children for begging, prostitution and crime." Other countries have recently taken action against Roma groups. Demark has expelled some of them, so has Sweden. Germany has paid some to return to Bulgaria or Romania, where most of them originate from. But it is the action taken in France that has caused most controversy."

ROMANIA/FRANCE: 1ST UPDATE: 70 Expelled Roma Arrive In Bucharest.

LINK CHANGE/ NYT/     About 70 Roma arrived in Bucharest after being expelled by France under a controversial policy backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Hundreds more will soon follow after their camps are shut down. Romania is warning against the "xenophobic reactions". "We understand the position of the French government. At the same time, we support unconditionally the right of every Romanian citizen to travel without restrictions within the EU," said Romanian President Traian Basescu. Each departing Roma  gets 300 euros ( $384) and an additional 100 euros for each child. But one Roma man said that in Romania "we don't have any chance, no jobs, nothing".

EUROLAND: Human Rights Groups Say Roma Are Losing Discrimination Protection.

GUARDIAN /    Human rights groups are denouncing France's decision to expel illegal Roma immigrants and destroy hundreds of their encampments. Elsewhere in the EU, Copenhagen has asked for government assistance to deport up to 400 Roma, and it was revealed that Swedish police expelled Roma in breach of its own and EU laws. Amnesty International claims the EU had "turned a blind eye" to what it called a "serious breach of human rights" towards Europe's Roma, who are roughly estimated to number about 16 million.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Poll Shows Czechs Finicky About Tolerance.

PRAGUEMONITOR/    A recent Focus Agency poll shows that only about one-fifth of Czechs are willing to accept Romanies as Czech citizens. However, 43% would not let Romanies enter the Czech Republic or they would expel them from the country. But Czechs are more accommodating to Poles and Germans. Five and 6% of Czechs can imagine a Pole or a German as their life partners, respectively. Sixty percent don't mind Poles as friends, neighbors and colleagues. One-fifth would accept them only as visitors to the Czech Republic.

HUNGARY: Roma People Fear Fidesz, Jobbik Party Gains.

AP/GOOGLE NEWS/         The Roma/Gypsies fear that big gains made by the extreme-right Jobbik party in  recent national elections will only increase the nation's growing climate of hatred. The Jobbik is now the third strongest party in parliament. They are also wary because Fidesz, the winning center-right party, has a "law and order" pledge to keep a closer eye on on Hungary's estimated 500,000-800,000 Roma.

HUNGARY: Ultra-National Jobbik Party Gaining Strength With "Bitter" Voters.

BLOOMBERG/   Hungary’s Jobbik party, which wants to get rid of free-market reforms and use armed guards to police the Roma, aka gypsy minority, has the largest support since the country abandoned communism, a projected 17% of the vote in the 11 April election. The 5-year-old party has tapped into a "bitter" voter bloc, angry with recent government cuts and resentful of the Roma. The downside is that "a strong showing by an extremist party could negatively impact tourism, the investment environment and even affect risks credit-rating agencies see in Hungary,”says analyst Gergely Boszormenyi Nagy.

SLOVAKIA: Roma Face Backlash During Hard Times.

NYTIMES/    Slovakia has an estimated 380,000 Roma, aka Gypsies. Culturally, the Roma are poor, suffer alcoholism, unemployment levels of 80%, and lack basic skills from poor education. They are also resented and feared by many. In the eastern town of Ostrovany, the city has actually built a 500-foot-long, 7-foot-high concrete wall separating a Roma ghetto from the homes of gadzos, or white people. “Slovaks perceive the Roma as a kind of natural disaster from which they must protect themselves,” said Roma Klara Orgovanova. “That is why they built that wall.”

CZECH REPUBLIC: Court Bans Far Right Workers Party; Appeal Planned.

BBC/   For the first time since 1993, a Czech court has abolished a political party. The Supreme Court called the Workers’ Party, established in 2003, a threat to democracy, describing it as xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic and sharing Nazi ideology with links to white-supremacist and racist groups. Judge Vojtech Simicek wrote “society must realize that the causes for the Workers’ Party lie deeply within itself. The Workers’ Party is not an external enemy to society, but one of its faces.” The party plans an appeal.

Madonna Booed In Romania For Defending Gypsies.

AP Via KYIV POST.

Madonna stopped her two-hour concert in Bucharest to tell her audience that discrimination against the Roma(gypsy)people made her "sad."
Thousands of the 60,000 concert-goers booed her.

In Hungary, Roma Are A Powderkeg.

REUTERS.

The economic downturn is increasing tensions and resentment toward minorities and immigrants across Europe.

Hungary is a prominent example of these tensions...where the Roma, who account for 6 to 7 percent of the population, find it hard getting jobs even in prosperous times.

Attacks On Roma Continue In Hungary.

From Reuters.

Attacks on the Roma, who make up about five to seven percent of Hungary's population of 10 million, are increasing during the cuurent economic crisis.