The Independent Rally of Citizens with Special Self-Identification or ASPIDA-ROM (Greek: Ανεξάρτητη Συσπείρωση Πολιτών Ιδιαίτερου Αυτοπροσδιορισμού ΡΟΜ - ΑΣΠΙΔΑ-ΡΟΜ) is a Greek political party established on January 15, 2006 to campaign for the rights of the Roma (what some people know as Gypsy) community in Greece. The Term ASPIDA is a common word in Greek, meaning shield. The main aim of the party is to achieve for Greek Roma and Sinti citizens the rights enjoyed by other Greek citizens. The party does not view Roma and Sinti in Greece as an ethnic minority but as Greek citizens. ASPIDA claims that there are around 600,000 Roma in Greece. The party has chosen a logo which includes the colors of the three main parties in Greece: blue, green and red. Its president and candidates for local and mayoral elections, which are due in October 2006, will be elected at a forthcoming party conference. The party spokesperson is Christos Lambrou. The party enjoys the support of the Panhellenic Confederation of Greek Roma (PACONGR).
Famous quotes containing the words independent, rally, citizens and/or special:
“The best way of learning to be an independent sovereign state is to be an independent sovereign state.”
—Kwame Nkrumah (1900–1972)
“All the critics who could not make their reputations by discovering you are hoping to make them by predicting hopefully your approaching impotence, failure and general drying up of natural juices. Not a one will wish you luck or hope that you will keep on writing unless you have political affiliations in which case these will rally around and speak of you and Homer, Balzac, Zola and Link Steffens.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“O my Brothers! love your Country. Our Country is our home, the home which God has given us, placing therein a numerous family which we love and are loved by, and with which we have a more intimate and quicker communion of feeling and thought than with others; a family which by its concentration upon a given spot, and by the homogeneous nature of its elements, is destined for a special kind of activity.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)