Antiziganism - Contemporary Antiziganism

Contemporary Antiziganism

According to a report issued by Amnesty International in 2011, "...systematic discrimination is taking place against up to 10 million Roma across Europe. The organization has documented the failures of governments across the continent to live up to their obligations".

Antiziganism has continued in the 2000s, particularly in Germany, France, England, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Kosovo.

In Bulgaria, professor Ognian Saparev has written articles stating that 'Gypsies' should be confined to ghettos because they do not assimilate, are culturally inclined towards theft, have no desire to work, and use their minority status to 'blackmail' the majority.European Union officials censured both the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 2007 for forcibly segregating Romani children from normal schools.

The manele, their modern music style, was prohibited in some cities of Romania in public transport and taxis, that actions being justified by buses and taxis companies as being for passenger's comfort and a pleasant ambience. However, that actions had been characterised by Speranta Radulescu, a professor of ethno-musicology at the Bucharest Conservatory, as "a defect of Romanian society". There were also a few criticisms of the Professor's Dr. Ioan Bradu Iamandescu experimental study, which linked the listening of "manele" to increased level of aggressiveness and low autocontrol and set a correlation between preference for that music style and low cognitive skills.

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg has been an outspoken critic of Antiziganism, both in reports and periodic Viewpoints. In August 2008, Hammarberg noting that "today's rhetoric against the Roma is very similar to the one used by Nazis and fascists before the mass killings started in the thirties and forties. Once more, it is argued that the Roma are a threat to safety and public health. No distinction is made between a few criminals and the overwhelming majority of the Roma population. This is shameful and dangerous."

According to the latest Human Rights First Hate Crime Survey, Romanies routinely suffer assaults in city streets and other public places as they travel to and from homes, workplaces, and markets. In a number of serious cases of violence against Romani people, attackers have also sought out whole families in their homes, or whole communities in settlements predominantly housing Romanis. These widespread patterns of violence are sometimes directed both at causing immediate harm to Romanis, without distinction between adults, the elderly, and small children and physically eradicating the presence of Romani people in towns and cities in several European countries.

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