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Dear brothers and sisters,

a more aggressive and cruel forms of racism, unseen since the Second World War, are again witnessed in Europe today. In many Member States of the EU, racists declarations go unpunished, gaining more influence and support each time. Political parties of extreme right occupy more positions of power. Democratic governments proclaim without shame the “delinquency and criminality” of Roma.

New York, 23/08/2010 – The Roma have been persecuted across Europe for centuries. Now they face a form of discrimination unseen in Europe since World War II: group evictions and expulsions from several European democracies of men, women, and children on the grounds that they pose a threat to public order.

Respected Mr. Hammarberg, human rights commissar,

While commenting deportationof Roma from France as a president of association of citizens"Journalism-informative agency of Roma" in Serbia, I most energetically disapprove racism in all its variants, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, intoleranceand all forms of religious discrimination, and I state that deportation is directly realized from the side of president of France Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mr. Hammarberg, better Europe, which president of France Nicolas Sarkozy also wants to build, will have to respond to next challenge: to secure protection of rights of Roma that belong to national minorities within the rule of justice.

Bucharest, 20. August (Romani Criss) - In the afternoon of July 19th 2010, 61 Romanian citizens of Roma ethnicity were repatriated. They came by plane, on Baneasa and Otopeni airport, in Bucharest. It was the first group of repatriated Romanian citizens after the announcement of the French authorities in July that they would initiate a campaign aiming at dismantling the Roma camps (approximately 300) and expelling them in the origin countries, namely Romania and Bulgaria. Romani CRISS and TRUST Association were present, at both airports and discussed with the repatriated Roma people.

Osviecim 7, August (AMM) -  Ceremonies marking the Day of Remembrance for the Exterminaton of the Roma were held on the sixty-sixth anniversary of the liquidation of the Familienzigeunerlager, the so-called family camp for Sinti and Roma in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. The several hundred people in attendance included former prisoners of Auschwitz and other Nazi camps and ghettos, Roma from Poland and abroad, government officials including Minister Elżbieta Radziszewska as the representative of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, representatives of the European Commission, members of the diplomatic corps, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and members of the staff, and local officials.
In his remarks, Roman Kwiatkowski, President of the Association of Roma in Poland, noted that “for us Roma, this is a symbolic place. It was precisely here that the last surviving Roma prisoners in the so-called Familienzigeunerlager were put to death in the gas chamber. That is why I wish to express my satisfaction that, just here at this site of the tragedy of our people, which is sometimes referred to as the Roma Holocaust, there is permanent remembrance in the form of a plaque.

Košice/Saint Maries de la Mer 19 july (RPA) - The Roma revere St. Sarah as their patron saint. Her historical existence is enveloped in a veil of secrets. A number of legends surround her and no one knows exactly which are true. One apocryphal text from the 11^th century even says that Sara was present at the empty tomb of Christ with Martha and Mary.

Four years after their creation in Europe, ‘social integration villages’ are being presented as a ‘Roma paradise’. European associations for minority protection expose some of the difficulties facing the most discriminated community in the EU. Meanwhile, the French government has since planned to dissolve 300 Roma settlements, whilst the UK is seeing its biggest Romany gypsy site, Dale Farm in Essex, bulldozed.

"Like black Americans of the pre-civil rights era, Europe’s 12-15 million Roma are 'politically invisible' despite being the region’s largest ethnic minority. Roma suffer from widespread and deeply-ingrained discrimination. Compared to other groups, Roma people have lower life expectancy. They have poorer health and live in worse housing. Employment and education levels are abysmal and of little concern to the politicians, whose commitment to change is at best weak, and most of the time non-existent. Like black Americans, Roma know the indignity of segregated schooling and medical experiments conducted without informed consent. The American Tuskegee syphilis programme finds its echo in the sterilisation of Roma women throughout Europe."

To say that the Gypsy people have been ignored by historians, politicians and the media would be something of an understatement. The Gypsies – or Roma, as they are more properly known – are to be found in almost every European country, and in a good many other places too, including the U.S. Numbering at least eight million in Europe alone, they now constitute the continent’s largest minority without a state of its own. And today they are arguably the most consistently persecuted minority as well, enduring everything from segregated schools and ghetto compounds in the Czech Republic to pogroms in Kosovo. Yet the international community has, for the most part, turned a blind eye to their plight.

Košice 5 April (RPA) – The Roma Media Center (MECEM) has been nominated for a Gypsy Spirit 2010 Award in the Activity of the Year category. It received the nomination for its 2009 campaign which focused on improving the awareness of the Roma community about the problem of human trafficking and thus broke the taboo regarding this subject among Roma communities.