Roma Rights 4, 2001: Mobilisation/participation

07 November 2001

Two major events of autumn at the ERRC were the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, and a lawsuit against the United Kingdom in connection with the practice of stationing liaison officers at the Prague airport, apparently to stop Roma from coming to Britain.

The ERRC sent a delegation of more than fifty activists (about forty of them Romani) to the World Conference. Our group was huge even by the standards of the massive event in Durban. Our aims were maximum visibility and the establishment of the Romani issue as among Europe's most pressing race concerns. Morag Goodwin, who accompanied the ERRC delegation, describes in these pages ERRC efforts surrounding the World Conference, and we also publish in this issue the speech of Anna Červeňáková, another one of the members of the ERRC delegation in Durban, to the NGO Forum preceding the main governmental event. Also included here is an ERRC press release, issued after the ERRC joined a statement with a number of other NGOs, primarily from Central and Eastern Europe, distancing ourselves from the documents adopted at the NGO Forum.

• World Conference Against Racism  (Claude Cahn) 

• The Roma in domestic and international politics: an emerging voice? (Peter Vermeersch) 

• In search of a new deal for Roma (ERRC interview with Nicolae Gheorghe) 

• The Romani movement: what shape, what direction? (Roundtable discussion) 

• Participation of Bulgarian Roma in the 2001 general elections and prospects for political representation (Andrei Iliev) 

• Nezdet Mustafa: Portrait of a Romani politician (Martin Demirovski) 

• Smoke and mirrors: Roma and minority policy in Hungary (Claude Cahn) 

• Visibility on the international stage: the ERRC delegation at the World Conference Against Racism (Morag Goodwin) 

• Institutionalised racism and Roma Statement by Ms Anna Červenáková at the World Conference Against Racism 

• ERRC dissociates itself from WCAR NGO Forum Press statement, September 5, 2001 

• Bosnia and Herzegovina * Bulgaria * Croatia * Czech Republic * Estonia * Finland * Germany * Greece * Hungary * Italy * Kosovo * Macedonia * Netherlands * Romania * Russia * Slovakia * United Kingdom * Ukraine * Yugoslavia  

• Legal action in Slovak police killing 

• European Parliament holds hearing on Roma rights (Veronika Leila Szente Goldston)  

• ERRC field notes, Croatia: being taught to hate (Gloria Jean Garland) 

• The ERRC in Poland (Eva Sobotka)

• So si diskriminacija? - Skurto liloro e manušenge save kerena buči pe Romengere čačipena (Romani language version of "Recognising and Combating Racial Discrimination: A Short Guide" published originally in English by the" ERRC) 

• Maškar-themutno Pakto pala e civil thaj politikake cacimata (Romani language translation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)  

• Opre Roma! (Refika Mustafić)

• Informacia andai stipendia (Grant guidelines in Romani) 

• Grants awarded 

• Chronicle