India-EU News & Analysis

[Karan Dixit]

Indian BPO to offer 800 jobs in Ireland


http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/may/03bpo.htm

(I have always liked Irish people. They are nice to deal with. I think Ireland should be a good place to head quarter our European operations.)

[sauravjha]

yup and the Irish are rediscovering their pagan past. I know a couple of professors who are doing research on druidic religion in the British Isles.

[Nayak]

Renditions Ruin the EU Case

[quote]
Monday, May 5th, 2008

renditions.jpgBy David Cronin | Collusion between European Union governments and a secret U.S. torture and kidnapping programme has damaged the EU’s efforts to promote human rights throughout the world, an internal paper drawn up by Brussels officials has admitted.

In 2001, the EU approved guidelines on how diplomats representing it should raise concern over the ill-treatment of detainees with the authorities in foreign countries. These guidelines stemmed from a stated commitment to “carry out systematic and sustained action in the fight against torture.â€

[vsudhir]

Dutch Knowledge migrant scheme big draw for young Indians (ET)

The knowledge migrant scheme of the Netherlands - which was introduced by the Dutch government as a work authorisation programme for highly skilled foreign workers (knowledge migrants or Kennismigranten) who are not citizens of Switzerland or the European Union - has turned into a very popular scheme for young Indians.

This programme was meant to attract young, highly skilled professionals to the Netherlands by introducing simple requirements and allowing for expedited processing of work permit applications through the Dutch Immigration Department’s (IND) desk for knowledge and labour migration. KM visa is issued for five years and cuts many steps in the older work-permit and residence-permit route.

Under the system, visa applications of skilled professionals and their families are dealt with quickly and they can often come and settle down in the Netherlands within two weeks.

Well.... the Jig is up. EU has wisened up to the essential difference between porkis and Indians. Witness swift but somewhat hamhanded moves by the UK to limit porki access and cousin cum spouse importation. All those English language testing.... Now Holland follows suit. All these 'knowledge/ skilled/ educated migrants" lingo is basically to keep the bakis and BDs out.

IMVVHOs etc, of course.

[JE Menon]

That's great. Holland is a wonderful, free, liberal country with very friendly people. And Amsterdam, the place where Harold and Kumar were heading before they got sidetracked to Gitmo, has many attractions...

[Karan Dixit]

MUMBAI, Aug 18 - India's Berger Paints Ltd <BRGR.BO> said it has acquired Poland's Bolix SA, an external insulation finishing system supplier, for an undisclosed sum from Advent International, a private equity group.

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080818/ ... 18940.html

(One more toy for Indian investors. Yay!!!!!!!!)

[sampat]

Berlin Neo-Nazis protest Hindu temple

[Rahul M]

X-post

How italy treats gypsies

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... untry.html

Mr Berlusconi declared a "Roma emergency", produced a disputed dossier of alleged immigrant muggings, robberies and murders, and promised to dismantle illegal gipsy camps. So far 700 have been identified. Even more controversial in a nation whose Fascist rulers helped the Nazis deport Jews and gipsies during the Second World War, fingerprinting of gipsies has started, despite the European Union saying the programme encourages xenophobia, and a Roman Catholic group describing it as racist.

"I would kill them all," said Virginia Cristell, a mother in her 40s. "Send them to the country – or send them somewhere. They are dirty and there are lots of problems with burglary and thieving. They make toxic smoke."

Soon her second wish will come true. Rome's new Right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, promised the middle-class troublemakers that if they gave up their road protest he would get rid of the camp.

For the inhabitants of Casalino 900, the bulldozers will be another of life's frequent disasters. Afterwards they will scavenge what possessions they can and move off to some other patch of unoccupied land.

The camp has been sealed off by police, but The Sunday Telegraph found a hole in the fence. Inside we found dislike of Italy and fear of the future. But the teenage mothers suckling infants have grown up in Rome and most speak only Italian. One camp resident, Najo Adzovic, 37, said he had deserted the Federal Yugoslav Army and fled to Italy when he was ordered to slaughter 15 Muslims during the Balkan wars. "I don't like the police outside our camp or the military presence on our streets," he said. "There is some petty crime committed by gipsies because our people are poor, but we are not all criminals."

The fingerprint policy that has them so worried – and fearful that the Government is trying to drive them out of Italy – has been drawn up by the junior party in Mr Berlusconi's coalition, Alleanza Nationale. Until it reinvented itself in the 1990s, it was a neo-fascist party.

The Leftists aren't able to understand this fear of crime because they have an ideological prejudice against law and order," said Mr Marsilio. His colleague, Alessandro Cochi, laughed off a 1930s-style propaganda poster in his office of a wild-eyed man giving a stiff-arm salute; he was not a fascist, he said, nor was Italy suffering a fascist wave.

That, however, is not the view of Goffredo Bezzecchi, 69, an Italian gipsy who came close to death after Italian Fascists tried to send his family to the death camps. They escaped before they could be deported. Mr Bezzecchi, who was fingerprinted at his home near Milan last month, feels history is at risk of repeating itself. "These things were done in the Fascist days when gipsies were killed or sent to concentration camps," he said. "The politicians should remember that we are human, not garbage."

[Rahul M]

^^^
it seems people are convinced that the romas are PIO who left India around 1000AD and are related to the banjaras. does the Indian state have any duty towards a community which originated here but left around thousand years back ??

[G Subramaniam]

I just saw a CNN show on Gypsies in the Czech republic

Gypsy women who go to hospitals to give birth are forcibly sterilised

[G Subramaniam]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 03,00.html


Gypsy camps destroyed as Italian intolerance flares

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Richard Owen, Naples | May 17, 2008

SMOKE rose yesterday from the smouldering ruins of a Gypsy camp attacked by vigilantes in a run-down industrial suburb of Naples in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.

The charred remains of the makeshift wooden shacks, mattresses and belongings at the site in Ponticelli crunched underfoot. Dogs scavenged through a pile of uncollected rubbish nearby.

Police guarded another squalid "nomad camp" beneath an overpass after the inhabitants fled during the night to avoid meeting a similar fate. Signs of their flight were everywhere, with doors to shacks left open and the ground strewn with clothing, shoes, bicycles, plastic bottles, pots and pans and children's toys.

Police launched a nationwide round-up of nearly 400 illegal immigrants this week from the Balkans and North Africa - the first step in a crackdown on crime promised by the new centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi. Almost 120 of those held in the operation, which stretched from Naples to northern Italy, were ordered to be deported immediately for offences ranging from drug-dealing and robbery to prostitution.

In Rome, where Gianni Alemanno, the new right-wing Mayor, has vowed to dismantle "nomad camps" to reduce street crime, police raided a Roma camp, taking the inhabitants by bus to detention centres. Mr Alemanno has promised to deport 20,000 illegal immigrants.

But in Naples local people pre-empted the crackdown and took the law into their own hands. Scores of youths on scooters and motorbikes wielded iron bars and threw Molotov cocktails at the Roma shanty towns. Their anger came to a head after a 17-year-old Roma girl entered a flat in Ponticelli and apparently tried to steal a six-month-old girl. The child's mother and neighbours gave chase and the teenager escaped being lynched only after police moved in.

Naples erupted in fury, with women leading the marches on the Roma camps to the chant of "Fuori, fuori" ("Out, out") and "Go home, dirty child stealers". Young men, allegedly on the orders of the Camorra, the Naples Mafia, set the sites ablaze, blocking attempts by the fire brigade to put out the fires. Exploding gas canisters completed the destruction. The women jeered at the firemen, shouting: "You put the fires out, we start them again."

Hundreds of Roma families fled for their lives, their belongings piled on to small pick-up trucks or handcarts. Some have been taken under police protection. Others have found refuge at Roma camps elsewhere in the Campania region, while a few have been taken in by Naples residents shocked at the outbreak of xenophobia.

The arson attacks come from festering anger over rising crime and urban degradation, much of it blamed on Roma gypsies and the estimated half a million Romanians who have emigrated to Italy since Romania joined the European Union. The Roma rights group Opera Nomadi says there are 2500 Roma in Naples, 1000 from Romania and 1500 from Balkan areas.

Late yesterday, the Berlusconi cabinet was to approve an emergency "security package" drawn up by new Interior Minister and deputy leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League Robert Maroni. It includes the dismantling of Roma camps, the appointment of "special commissioners" to deal with "the Roma problem", tighter border controls and speedier deportation of immigrants who cannot show they have a job or adequate income. Mr Maroni wants to make illegal immigration a criminal offence.

Romanian Interior Minister Cristian David arrived in Rome yesterday for talks on the crisis.

The Times

[Victor]

Romani girl from Czechoslovakia

The Roma are Europe's largest stateless minority. They suffered as much as the Jews did during the holocaust and much more after WW2. Perhaps it is time our birathers get their promised land somewhere in Europe? Romanidesh would make a great outpost for India, specially if we arm it to the teeth and convert as many as possible back to Hinduism, thus giving them a sense of identity and pride.

[Rahul M]

interesting :
http://www.romani.org/

and check out their flag :
http://romani.org/local/romani_anthem.html[quote]
"In 1971 the International Gypsy Committee organized the first World Romani Congress. This took place in a location near London... funded in part by the World Council of Churches and the Indian Government; representatives from India and some 20 other countries were in attendance. At the congress, the green and blue flag from the 1933 conference, now embellished with the red, sixteen-spoked chakra, was reaffirmed as the national emblem of the Romani people, and the anthem, Dzelem dzelem, since sung at all congresses, was adopted."(2)[/quote]

giving them PIO status in the next decade or two may not be unthinkable.

[Rahul M]

an ex IFS DR.W.R.Rishi, is notable for the roma political movement.

His publications include a Romani dictionary, a Romani-Punjabi phrase book and dictionary, Roma: the Punjabi Emigrants and India & Russia: Linguistic & Cultural Affinity. The last won him the Soviet Land Nehru Award in l983, and he was later awarded the title Padmashri, as a linguist, and Brahmarshi, as well as becoming Shiromani Sahitkar, Honoured Litterateur.

http://www.romani.org/rishi/obit.html

Indira Gandhi in her opening speech at the International Romani Festival in Chandigarh, India on October 28, 1983.

It is apt that the Congress is being held here, for the Roma people have an affinity with the Punjab. Roma culture has imbibed and absorbed features of many lands and peoples and it retains memories of elements of Indian civilization. This internationalism has a particular value in our times.

India has also suffered the ignominy of servitude and the myriad ills which attend it but is now independent and resurgent. Its vast treasure of ancient wisdom is open to the world, a part of the common heritage of humankind. The roma represent some of this treasure. They are a living example of humankind's ability to overcome travail. We in India have always been proud of our great and unbroken cultural tradition. Can it now withstand the tremendous onslaught?

The Indian people support the effort of the Roma in enriching human culture. Theirs is an example of nationalism within internationalism, beyond prejudice where large heartedless thinks of all people as one big family, living in harmony, trust and peace.

looks like IG gave much state support to the roma cause.
Did she realize some need for supporting these people which subsequent Indian govts have ignored ??

[Lalmohan]

apparently the roma trace themselves back to hunnish tribes who may have migrated out of india - possibly during the expellation of the huns many centuries ago. they have been nomadic people all along. flamenco music (originating with spanish gypsies/roma) has strong connections with hindustani musical forms, and there are apparently other cultural similarities. however, across europe they are pariahs, seen as trouble makers and thieves and not to be trusted. they may have sided with the 'wrong side' some time in the past and have never been forgiven, maybe the turks or mongols in the middle ages...?

[Rahul M]

lalmohan, are you sure about the hun thing ?? the roma trace themselves to the punjab area, apparently to the jat community. I know this is not scientific enough but ask any person about the ethnicity of the girl in the image above. I'm sure 100% would say Indian.

[Victor]

The Roma have traditionally remained in Eastern Europe but with the EU throwing open its borders, they are showing up all over the place and making the Euro TFTAs (Sweden, Finland, Denmark etc) uncomfortable and causing them to revert to racist form. The Roma are huge minorities in places like Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary (the gateway countries to Europe) and have been left relatively alone there but it looks like they will be increasingly hounded and abused in Western Europe. Among the most intolerant are the Eyeties. India MUST take up every little incident with the Euros and beat them mercilessly with their own "human rights" stick. Set up Roma rights forums, bring up discussion in the UN etc.

[Johann]

An increase in Roma ties with India would be good for the Roma, and for Europe.

Unlike the Jews, the other historically stateless 'outsiders' who arrived in Europe the Roma lacked a culture of literacy. Perhaps because despite the linguistic ties there is minimal Indic religion or thought living in Roma culture today.

The Jewish emphasis on learning meant that once emancipation was possible they had the cultural capital to become succesful - in the German and Polish cases so succesful that it aroused murderous envy.

But without that culture, the Roma subjected to centuries of exclusion in Eastern Europe have come to identify themselves with the margins they were forced in to by wider society - crime in particular. Street crime rates, particularly knife crime rates in Rome have soared with the arrival of Roma from Bulgaria and Romania. The reaction which has been a kind of collective punishment of the Roma does nothing to break the cycle.

But greater contact with India could help the Roma transform their self-image, their culture and potentially their position in the socioeconomic ladder.

[G Subramaniam]

Johann, if the western europeans are wise
they will settle the romas on the borders of the islamic no-go zones
One knife culture neutralising the other

[G Subramaniam]

Johann wrote
--
The reaction which has been a kind of collective punishment of the Roma does nothing to break the cycle.

--

So even the rich educated and 'enlightened' europeans are using 'collective punishment', so it is not simply the 'hindu fanatics' who do it
in Gujarat and Orissa

[vera_k]

Check out page 10 of this report for Roma DNA match results.

Roma DNA sample results

[Rahul M]

incidentally, we had a roma member few months back. forget his name tho'.

[g.sarkar]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 03,00.html
Gypsy camps destroyed as Italian intolerance flares

And here I thought the eyetalians were complaining about the treatment of Christians in Orissa. But then Roma are considered to be untermensch in Oiropa!
Gautam

[G Subramaniam]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 03,00.html
Gypsy camps destroyed as Italian intolerance flares

And here I thought the eyetalians were complaining about the treatment of Christians in Orissa. But then Roma are considered to be untermensch in Oiropa!
Gautam

Keep in mind, the gypsies are nominally xtian,
since non-xtian religions were banned in europe until recently

[g.sarkar]

And here I thought the eyetalians were complaining about the treatment of Christians in Orissa. But then Roma are considered to be untermensch in Oiropa!
Gautam

Keep in mind, the gypsies are nominally xtian,
since non-xtian religions were banned in europe until recently

As far as I can remember, Roma have adopted the predominant religion of the country they live in. This conversion did not save them from the Third Reich.
Gautam

[G Subramaniam]

And here I thought the eyetalians were complaining about the treatment of Christians in Orissa. But then Roma are considered to be untermensch in Oiropa!
Gautam

Keep in mind, the gypsies are nominally xtian,
since non-xtian religions were banned in europe until recently

As far as I can remember, Roma have adopted the predominant religion of the country they live in. This conversion did not save them from the Third Reich.
Gautam[/quote]

Ultimately, western xtianity is a white man religion
Xtianity did not save the xtian natives of colonised countries
esp Africa and America
The Cherokees were deported despite being xtian
and in South Africa, Desmond Tutu was still a 'nigger' until 15 years ago

About 80 years ago, Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, an Oriya poet converted to xtianity and then discovered that he was still a 'nigger'

I wonder when the Indian EJ 'pastors' ( neo-pastors minted by the thousands ) will realise this

I wonder if the FIACONA members are welcome in white churches in the US?

[Neshant]

The Romas were targetted by the Third Reich along with the Jews to eliminate all eastern cultures from Europe.

That really was the purpose of the genocide of WWII. It was one particularly virulent form of western culture trying to stamp out eastern cultures (Judaism, Gypsies) in Europe. Russia was considered a half-western and half-eastern mongrel culture to be wiped out.

India really cannot connect with these Romas unless there is some common language or identity which binds us. The only way this is possible is if they watch a ton of Bollywood movies and pick up Hindi. Once that happens, they become like NRI and can get GOI to speak on their behalf if they so choose. However seeing how the present govt cannot even stand up for citizens showing patriotism in Jammu, one wonders what is the point of suggesting the above.

[Sanjay M]

Maybe India can borrow a page from the Western playbook, and fund lots of Roma NGOs to support their human rights activism in Europe. Then let's see how the Western "Human Rights" organizations deal with that.

[g.sarkar]

Sorry to quibble, Michael Madhusudhan Dutt was not Oriya. He converted in 1843.
Gautam

About 80 years ago, Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, an Oriya poet converted to xtianity and then discovered that he was still a 'nigger'

[sanjaykumar]

http://www2.arnes.si/~eusmith/Romany/glossary.html

[Rahul M]

Sorry to quibble, Michael Madhusudhan Dutt was not Oriya. He converted in 1843.
Gautam

About 80 years ago, Michael Madhusudhan Dutt, an Oriya poet converted to xtianity and then discovered that he was still a 'nigger'

to add to that, he is considered one of bengal's most influential poets and one of the pillars of bengal's renaissance period. his best known works include the epical meghnad badh kabya (loosely based on events from ramayan) which is considered one of the foremost epics in modern Indian languages.
he is also a distant great(+/-great) grandfather of leander paes.

[Johann]

+ There is very much a left-right divide in Italy on the question of illegal immigration (Bulgaria and Romania are not yet in the Schengen zone)
The right-wing Berlusconi govt has used very aggressive rhetoric about illegal immigrants.

+ Human rights organisations are extremely critical of the Berlusconi government's rhetoric, and its failure to stem vigilante violence against illegal immigrants.

+ Left wing Italian parties and organisations have launched a campaign against the Berlusconi govt's policies, as well as against xenophobia in general.

+ When Romania and Bulgaria enter the Schengen Zone, Roma from Bulgaria and Romania will not be illegal immigrants anywhere in the EU. As legal residents they will be entitled to benefits. That will reduce the numbers of Roma illegal immigrants living underground and involved in crime.

Plus, EU directives have forced both Romania and Bulgaria to actively work to improve education, healthcare and employment for the Romani.

But beyond all of that India can still play a really positive role in helping the Romani set higher horizons for themselves.

[G Subramaniam]

http://www.vijayvaani.com/article_02sep.htm

Racial Profiling: Roma (Gypsies) in Italy
Sandhya Jain
1 September 2008
back

Italy has dared comment on the Orissa situation, ignoring the gruesome pre-planned murder of Swami Laxmanananda and four disciples on Krishna Janmastami day. This blatant interference in India ’s internal affairs is to support evangelical aggression against India ’s native communities. Italy’s own treatment of the peaceful Roma people is less than exemplary - Editor



Just one week after coming to power in May, Italy ’s new centre-right government revived the old European prejudices against the Roma (Gypsies) with its decision to fingerprint and from 2010 put fingerprints on all national identity and residence cards (http://globeonline.wordpress.com).



As there was no pressing reason for such an elaborate programme, Roma leaders believe the real reason is to enable the government to continue taking fingerprints of Roma who live in camps - both legal and informal - on the outskirts of several Italian cities. It is a policy that harks back to the worst days of Benito Mussolini.



In June, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, announced that all residents of Roma camps, including children, would be fingerprinted. Though Rome insisted it was not identifying any specific groups, the fact remains that the crackdown mostly targetted Roma people of Eastern European descent. Gypsies are traditional nomadic people; they reverence traditional gods and are therefore hated, though they number hardly 150,000 in all.



The move immediately drew accusations of racism and discrimination from the UNICEF, the Council of Europe, the Catholic Church, and Amnesty International; it is a clear violation of European Union law. Yet, fingerprinting began immediately in the Naples area, and under the cover of a national programme, fingerprinting of residents of so called “nomad” camps can be done without interruption. Mr. Maroni was quoted by Corriere della Sera as saying the government would also go ahead with a Census of the Roma.



Thus, the Roma (Gypsies) are once again the target of an old prejudice. In the recent national elections, voters were seized with a fear called “security emergency.” Put simply, Italians feel that violent crime is rising, and is caused by foreigners. These fears were easily stoked into violence by agent provocateurs, and in May 2008 the Roma camps near Naples had to be evacuated after local people torched the shanties, instigated by rumours that a teenage Roma girl had tried to kidnap an Italian baby.



Her subsequent arrest led to bitter protests, followed by vigilante groups chasing Roma out of two squatter camps in the Ponticelli suburb of Naples by tossing Molotov cocktails into their huts. Eight hundred people are rendered homeless and a Molotov cocktail was thrown into a trailer with children, who narrowly escaped the fire that ensued. Reacting to this event, Northern League leader Umberto Bossi told the media: “People do what the political class can’t manage.”



A few days later, on 12-13 May in Florence , over 400 Roma were arbitrarily arrested, registered and fingerprinted, obviously as a prelude to deportation. Roma organisations in Italy say that these and other incidents in different parts of Italy are being fostered by anti-Roma statements from high-level politicians and state representatives. They demand that while designing new immigration rules, Italy ensure that its legislation conforms to the European Directive 2004/38 against Discrimination, the Race Equality Directive 2000/43 EC, the EU Migration Package and other European human rights treaties subscribed to by Italy .



Experts say the steep rise in legal and illegal immigration (as in other parts of Europe) has created a strong anti-immigrant sentiment in Italy , which increases every time a foreigner is accused of a heinous crime. Though Gypsies have lived in Italy since the 14th century, they are still regarded as outsiders – a telling commentary on secularism and national integration in that country. Worse, ordinary Italians are so ill-informed that after Romania joined the EU in 2007 and many Rumeni (Romanians) entered the country, they were confused with the Roma, who became victims of intensified prejudice!



The new government lost no time in promoting prejudice. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said his new measures would prevent “rage prevailing over civilized co-existence,” whatever that means. Italian Police Chief Antonio Manganelli said “only by blocking the entry into Italy of people who refuse to integrate, people who import crime, will we be able to help ease the fear that has crept across swathes of our country.” In other words, Italy just can’t tolerate diversity in any form!



Maroni also wanted to reintroduce passport controls at the Italian border, despite the fact that the European Union is a passport-free Schengen zone. Thus, instead of spreading awareness to overcome prejudice, the conservative government of Silvio Berlusconi is determined to exploit and magnify hysteria, pretending the measures are necessary to curtail street crime and begging. The excuse has few takers; the centre-left opposition has condemned the moves as uncivilized; centrist leader Pier Ferdinando Casini said “it is an act of racism.”



The fingerprinting of Roma on grounds of public security is just one in a series of discriminatory policies by Italian authorities. Since 2007, there has been an increase in the number of forced evictions such as that of the Tor di Quinto settlement in Rome where large numbers of people, including children and elderly, were left in the middle of the night after their settlement was destroyed.



In July, the EUs Justice and Home Affairs Council met in Brussels to discuss the acts of discrimination against Roma communities in Italy , resulting in the fingerprinting of Roma, including children. Mr. Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International’s EU Office, said that “After criticism from the Commission and the European Parliament, it is now time for EU member states to speak out against what has become a full-fledged campaign against Roma.”



Italy was forced to appear in Brussels and explain to EU the policy of fingerprinting Roma. Amnesty International insisted the policy was racist and violated the rights of all EU citizens. All opponents of the action noted that EU citizens of Roma origin are treated differently from other citizens in Italy , who are not required to submit their fingerprints.



The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, on 29 July 2008 produced a report after visiting Rome in June, and said: “Concern about security cannot be the only basis for immigration policy. Measures now being taken in Italy lack human rights and humanitarian principles and may spur further xenopohobia.” Hammarberg went to Rome after a series of anti-Roma and anti-Sinti protests, often very violent, and the rapid adoption or preparation of legislation aimed to introduce further controls on the freedom of movement of Roma and Sinti (a form of Apartheid), the criminalisation of irregular immigration and additional restrictions on immigration.



These overt acts of discrimination compelled a trio of independent United Nations human rights experts, namely, Special Rapporteur on Racism Doudou Diene, Independent Expert on minority issues Gay J. McDougall, and Special Rapporteur on the Human rights of Migrants Jorge Bustamante, to express concern at the exclusive targetting to the Roma minority (15 July 2008). They were appalled at the “aggressive and discriminatory rhetoric” used by political leaders, including Cabinet members: “By explicitly associating the Roma to criminality, and by calling for the immediate dismantling of Roma camps in the country, these officials have created an overall environment of hostility, antagonism and stigmatization of the Roma community among the general public.” This climate led extremist groups to attack Roma camps and individuals, they concluded.



The three experts asked the Italian Government to abide by its obligations under international human rights law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination and the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities.



The European Parliament adopted a resolution “urging the Italian Government to refrain from proceeding to the collection of fingerprints of the members of the Roma minority and from the use of fingerprints already collected, awaiting the forthcoming announced evaluation by the European Commission of the measures envisaged.” Marco Cappato (Radicals/Italy) said: “the real emergency existing in Italy is due to the endemic lack of democracy and legality as proven by the fact that Italy has the highest number of condemnations by the European Court of Human Rights.”

[Gerard]

Italians Sunbathe on a beach with Roma children's dead bodies just metres away



link

It seemed like a shameful display of indifference in the face of death. The lifeless bodies of two girls, who happened to be members of the Roma community, had been laid out on a southern Italian beach following a double drowning tragedy.

The makeshift shrouds thrown over the small corpses looked hopelessly undignified: brightly coloured beach towels obscured the girls' faces and bodies. Their little feet peeked out from under the brash coverings. It was a pitiful sight. But sunbathers sitting close by carried on regardless, apparently unfazed by the shocking sight of two dead bodies on the Neopolitan strand.

Italian newspapers reported that few sun-worshippers left the beach, apparently seeing no reason to cut short their day at the seaside. In the hour or so that passed before the bodies were removed from the shore by mortuary services, bikini-clad bystanders simply resumed their beach rituals of applying sun tan lotion and snacking. "While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few metres away," said one report.

Some commentators have subsequently wondered how these impassive beachgoers would have reacted if two Italian signorinas had been lying dead on the beach.

[Lalmohan]

lalmohan, are you sure about the hun thing ?? the roma trace themselves to the punjab area, apparently to the jat community. I know this is not scientific enough but ask any person about the ethnicity of the girl in the image above. I'm sure 100% would say Indian.

I am 400% sure... which means, no not really. Just something I read sometime back. I thought Rajasthan, rather than Punjab. There is a link with India, what that is is now blurred. atleast for me. IIRC it was 'tribes associated with the Huns'

given the sheer numbers and diversity of nomadic tribes that have criss crossed the Eureasian landmass over the centuries, its probably too hard to pin it down accurately. Case in point being the Jewish Avars and the supposedly Caucasian horsemen of the Kazakh/Mongol steppes in ancient times... who knows for sure now?

and since we're at it... Kennewick Man and the australian aboriginal found in Brazil... too many loose ends in neat theories

[Rahul M]

FWIW, I have failed to gather any nugget linking the romas to the huns. google doesn't turn up anything.
anyway, we are moving OT ! so let's get back to discussing the haves of oirope, rather than the have nots.

[RajeshA]

India - Singh on key 2-day European visit

Also on the agenda are the financial crisis, terrorism, and religious freedoms in India, where members of the Christian minority have again been attacked recently. “With regard to the Christian minority in India, let me say India is a secular State. We are a country which is multi-racial, multi-religious, and the Constitution of India guaranties to all citizens of India the freedom and right to profess the religion of their choice,” says Manmohan Singh.

Too many unnecessary things being talked about there. It is a pity, that MMS has to defend India's record on minority protection at a meeting, which should have been packaged as India Unshackled.

[vavinash]

Pity the PM is a spineless leader. Someone with more confidence would have pushed these EU retard on the backfoot by talking about the treatment of romas in italy and frenchies rules not allowing sikhs and muslims their religious freedom.

[Neshant]

the guy is spinless absolutely. at least V gave as good as he got.


----

Sarkozy and Barrosso expressed satisfaction with Singh's assurances. "He is a courageous man. My respect for him has gone up because of his courageous assurances," Sarkozy said. Barroso spoke in the same vein, saying that "we praise the clarity with which he has condemned the violence".

The French president, however, was riled by a question which asked about the ban on Sikh turbans in government-funded schools in France.

"Massacre of Christians and the turban issue are not of the same nature," he snapped. He also made it clear that Sikhs will have to conform to rules of the French Republic.

"We respect their customs and traditions and they are welcome in France. But we have rules regarding the neutrality of civil servants; regarding secularism and those apply not just to Sikhs or Muslims but to all. They are non-discriminatory. So while we respect the customs of Sikhs, we expect them to respect the rules of the Republic," Sarkozy asserted.

India and the EU have long had a thorny relationship on the issue of human rights. During the heyday of Kashmir terrorism, EU never failed to criticize Indian actions. In 2002, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was ticked off by Danish PM Anders Rasmussen on human rights abuses of Kashmiris, leading Vajpayee to retaliate.

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