Glasgow Roma community at heart of university project


By Ginny Sanderson

@ginnysanderson

Live Reporter



A Glasgow Roma community is at the heart of a major new £1.1 million project led by a Scottish university.

The "urgently needed" study by Heriot-Watt aims to investigate the significantly lower life expectancy of 10 years or more experienced by Roma people across the UK.

The new three-year project will work with community groups of Roma people, including Scotland's biggest Roma community in Govanhill, Glasgow.

Read more: 'Historic moment': First cultural centre for Scotland's Roma communities announced

Dr Ryan Woolrych, director of the Urban Institute at Heriot-Watt University, said: "This research is urgently needed as public health bodies and government reports continue to evidence the inequalities faced by Roma people living in the UK today which is severely impacting life expectancies and creating growing social exclusion.

“There is a significant evidence gap in terms of exploring what it means to age within Roma communities and the interventions needed to ensure healthy and active ageing.

“We will address this by taking an inclusive, community-centred approach to understanding barriers faced by Roma people in accessing healthcare and other services before supporting the development of services that build on their cultural assets and lived experiences.

"By doing so, we can positively influence a shift in health, wellbeing and place policies and practices for Roma groups.

“We will employ innovative and creative methods like storytelling, dance and photography, working alongside communities to gain deeper insight into Roma experiences to co-design interventions that will deliver impact where they are needed the most.”

Roma people experience some of the poorest health and wellbeing outcomes, including significantly lower life expectancy of 10 or more years below the national average as well as a higher prevalence of long-term chronic conditions and increased social exclusion.

Poorer health can result from barriers and challenges when accessing the physical, social, and cultural supports that are needed to age across the life course.

Leon Puska of Roma Romeha speaking at International Roma Day (Image: Community Renewal Trust)

Among the organisations it will work with is Community Renewal Rom Romeha, which has worked alongside the Govanhill Roma community for more than a decade.

Meaning 'for Roma, by Roma', Rom Romeha supports thousands of Roma families providing advice around benefits, employment, housing, discrimination, community activism, and spaces to meet up.

Community facilitator Leon Pushka said: "We really support this work with Heriot-Watt University on this study as they too are putting Roma people and Roma voices at the heart of their research project.

"Roma experience terrible health inequalities caused in part by problems with housing, money and access to services.

"It is very important to us that insights into how to address this come from the community rather than being top-down. This will be integral to any research that will document and ultimately impact on their community and life chances.”

Roma communities in Glasgow, Luton, and Peterborough will be at the heart of the research (Image: Heriot-Watt)

The research builds on already-established relationships with Roma communities, public authorities and health providers across the case study areas to give Roma people a voice in developing services that respect their dignity.

Including co-researchers from Roma communities, the project aims to identify barriers faced by Roma people in accessing healthcare and other services in mid to later life.

It will then co-design new place-based 'integrated hubs' to better connect Roma people with culturally appropriate health, wellbeing and community resources which build upon existing expertise and assets within the community.

The multidisciplinary team includes the Roma Support Group, Luton Roma Trust, Compas and Community Renewal Trust’s Rom Romeha (meaning for Roma by Roma) in Govanhill as well as expertise from Coventry University, Anglia Ruskin University and the University of Dundee.

Mihai Bica from the Roma Support Group said: “The Roma Support Group is thrilled to be part of this exciting and much needed research addressing some of the existing Roma health inequalities.

"We are particularly pleased that this project will draw on the knowledge and expertise of Roma from across the UK to co-develop healthcare solutions, while equipping them with the skills and capacity to play a central role in future research projects and drive policy change.”

Funding for the research is led by AHRC in collaboration with BBSRC, ESRC, MRC and NERC, all part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

Further funding is from UKRI’s Building a Secure and Resilient World, and Creating Opportunities, Improving Outcomes strategic themes and the programme is run in partnership with the National Centre for Creative Health.

 

Brutal’ Discrimination Adds Trauma to Roma as they Flee War-torn Ukraine

Refugees at a border point between Republic of Moldova and Ukraine on March 1, 2022. Among the 2 million refugees who have fled Ukraine were Roma refugees who say they were discriminated against as they tried to escape. Credit: UN Women

• by Ed Holt (Bratislava)
• Wednesday, March 09, 2022
• Inter Press Service

BRATISLAVA, Mar 09 (IPS) - Roma refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine are facing discrimination on both sides of the country’s borders at the end of often harrowing journeys across the country, rights groups have claimed.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has sparked what the UN has described as the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since WWII, and as of March 9, an estimated 2 million people had left the country.

These include Roma who, like other refugees, abandoned their homes and communities as fighting broke out across the country.

But having reached borders of neighbouring states, they have found themselves subject to what some groups helping them have described as “brutal” discrimination.

“Groups working on the ground at borders in Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary have confirmed discrimination to us, and also media reports have backed this up. Roma are facing discrimination both by border guards, and then local people once they get out of Ukraine. It’s very sad and disappointing, but not surprising,” Zeljko Jovanovic, Director of the Roma Initiatives Office at the Open Society Foundation (OSF) told IPS.

Roma refugees faced ‘brutal’ discrimination at both sides of the border of Ukraine as they joined 2 million others to flee the bombing in war-torn Ukraine. These headlines reflect their ordeal. Graphic: IPS

Roma living in Europe are among the most discriminated and disadvantaged groups on the continent. In many countries, including Ukraine where it is thought there are as many as 400,000 Roma, significant numbers live in segregated settlements where living conditions are often poor and extreme poverty widespread.

Health in many such places is also bad with research showing very high burdens of both infectious and non-communicable diseases and significantly shorter lifespans than the general population.

Incidents of discrimination of Roma have been reported at the borders of all countries that are taking in refugees, according to the OSF and the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC).

These have included being made to wait much longer in lines, sometimes tens of kilometres long, in freezing weather, than ethnic Ukrainian refugees, before they are processed.

“They are always the last people to be let out of the country,” said Jovanovic.

Media reports have quoted refugees describing discrimination and, in some cases, physical attacks.

One Roma woman who had made her way to Moldova said she and her family had spent four days waiting at the border with no food and water, and having found shelter were then chased out of it by Ukrainian guards.

Groups working with the refugees said Roma who crossed into their countries told them similar stories.

Viktor Teru of the Roma Education Fund in Slovakia said: “Roma refugees tell us that on the Ukrainian side there is ‘brutal’ discrimination.”

But once they finally make it over the border, their problems often do not end there.

Bela Racz, of the 1Hungary organisation, which is helping Roma refugees in Hungary, said he had witnessed discrimination during three days his organisation spent in the eastern Hungarian border town of Zahony at the beginning of March.

“Roma arrived in separate coaches – the Ukrainian border guards organized it this way – and when they did arrive, Roma mothers were checked by Hungarian police many times, but non-Roma mothers were not.

“Local mayors and Hungarians are not providing direct help, such as accommodation, and information, in their towns - that only comes if we ask for it and organise it. Roma did not get proper help, information, or support,” he told IPS.

There have been numerous media reports of similar discrimination at border crossings in other countries, including incidents of Roma being refused transport by volunteers, and being refused accommodation.

Jaroslav Miko, founder of the Cesi Pomahaji (Czechs Help) NGO, who has transported more than 100 Roma refugees from the Slovak-Ukrainian border to the Czech Republic, told IPS he had seen “discrimination of Roma among the volunteers who were picking people up at the border”. He said volunteers were picking up some refugees in vehicles and taking them to other places, but that Roma families were being turned away if they asked for help.

In another incident, the head of a firefighting station in Humenne, in eastern Slovakia, where many Roma refugees have been sent to a holding camp, told a reporter that the refugees had “abused the situation". "They are not people who are directly threatened by the war. They are people from near the border, they have abused the opportunity for us to cook them hot food here and to receive humanitarian aid," the firefighter allegedly said, adding that Ukrainian Roma should not be allowed across the border.

Slovakia’s Interior Minister Roman Mikulec and national fire brigade officials have refused to comment on the claims.

But despite these incidents of discrimination, Roma refugees are getting local help – from other Roma.

“Many Hungarian Roma living in nearby villages are providing accommodation for Roma. Due to the presence of groups like ours, and state representatives, the situation with discrimination is getting better,” said Racz.

“There is a good network of Roma activist groups coordinating work to help refugees and also there are Roma mayors in many towns near the borders in Romania and Slovakia who are prepared to take Roma refugees and arrange shelter for them,” added Jovanovic.

However, all those who spoke to IPS said the discrimination against Roma refugees was a reminder of the systemic prejudice the minority faces.

Meanwhile, Jovanovic said he hoped that the problems Roma refugees were facing now would not be forgotten, as they had been in the past.

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© Inter Press Service (2022) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

Coronavirus: Europe's forgotten Roma at risk
The COVID-19 pandemic is a looming disaster for the millions of Roma living in Central and Southeastern Europe. Instead of providing aid, many authorities have resorted to restrictive measures implemented by force.

People with preexisting medical conditions are most at risk of contracting COVID-19, as well as those working in the health care sector. But in Europe, another group is in particular danger — and yet, they've been mostly overlooked.

Millions of poor Roma in Central and Southeastern Europe, most of whom live in cramped conditions without access to health care and basic sanitation, are facing a humanitarian disaster. Those who already earn a meager living by collecting junk and plastic or selling food, household products and flowers are currently unable to carry out even this informal work.

Read more: Coronavirus: Are less-developed EU countries more susceptible?

Roma rights groups are alarmed

The community, which suffers racism and discrimination at the best of times, is now being treated with even more stigmatization. On top of general measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, authorities in Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria have introduced additional restrictions to put Roma communities under quarantine, sometimes resorting to the use of police and military force.

Roma rights groups across Europe are alarmed. The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma recently expressed concern that "right-wing extremist and nationalist politicians in Central and Southeast Europe would use the current corona crisis to legitimize and implement their racist government action."

"Instead of seeking additional ways to protect these particularly vulnerable members of our societies as coronavirus spreads, some politicians have actively fueled anti-Gypsyism," said Czech MP Frantisek Kopriva, the rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on discrimination against Roma and Travellers in the area of housing, in late March.

'Catastrophic' neglect

An estimated 10 to 12 million Roma live in Europe, making up the continent's largest minority group. About half live in seven countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and North Macedonia. This is also where some of the most infamous Roma settlements are located, for example Lunik IX on the outskirts of Kosice in eastern Slovakia, Stolipinovo in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Ferentari in the Romanian capital, Bucharest and Shuto Orizari near the North Macedonian capital, Skopje.

Read more: Poland's Roma community battles discrimination

In all these settlements, families live in extremely cramped conditions, with three or four generations often sharing only one or two rooms. Infrastructure is poor, there is little access to clean, running water and sewage systems are broken or rudimentary at best.

These are ideal conditions for the spread of the contagious coronavirus. But instead of trying to prevent the pandemic from spreading by remedying the substandard conditions, the authorities are using repressive measures to clamp down further on Roma communities.

Zeljko Jovanovic, director of the Open Society Roma Initiatives Office in Berlin, said it would be catastrophic if the Roma population continued to be neglected. "The majority society has not yet understood that unemployment among Roma is bad for the whole economy, and right-wing extremist attacks against Roma are bad for democracy," he told DW. "Now, it has to become clear that poor health conditions for Roma have direct and immediate consequences for non-Roma."

Social programs urgently needed

Slovakia's new center-right populist coalition government has acknowledged the problem, but has resorted to dubious methods to address it. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Igor Matovic announced mass COVID-19 testing in 33 Roma settlements, especially for those people who had just returned from abroad. The tests were scheduled to begin on Friday, and would be carried out by military doctors accompanied by soldiers. Depending on results, people would either be quarantined in state-run institutions, or whole settlements would be placed under quarantine.

Read more: Coronavirus: Rule of law under attack in southeast Europe

Matovic insisted the use of the military to impose these measures was not a "state demonstration of strength," but was to ensure the safety of the Roma themselves. Abel Ravasz, the government's former emissary for the Roma communities, told the Slovak news portal Parameter that the use of the army would only further stigmatize the Roma instead of giving them the impression that the state was their partner.

In Romania and Bulgaria, police have cordoned off several of the larger Roma settlements. Many inhabitants had come back from abroad in recent days and violated the quarantine regulations. In the Roma community of Tandarei, in southeastern Romania, dozens of masked police are now patrolling the streets. The situation is the same in the Roma districts of Nova, Sagora, Kazanlak and Sliven in Bulgaria.

Read more: How the 'Germans' are changing the largest Roma enclave in Europe

Throughout the region the state has provided little help to the Roma, though there have been some exceptions. In some parts of Slovakia local authorities have provided access to clean water with mobile units, while in Cluj, Romania the city distributed packages containing food and sanitary products to 300 families living on the outskirts near the landfill.

In Hungary, Roma rights activist Aladar Horvath has called for a special social program for the inhabitants of segregated settlements. In a letter to the government and President Janos Ader, he proposed a nine-point crisis management program. "In the ghettoized areas, people have no savings, no provisions and no medical care. People are worried that they will soon not be able to feed their children," he wrote.

He has yet to receive an answer.



REMEMBERING NAZI GENOCIDE OF SINTI AND ROMA

Serving the fatherland

Many German Sinti fought for Germany not only in the First World War but also in the Wehrmacht from 1939 on. In 1941 the German high command ordered all "Gypsies and Gypsy half-breeds" to be dismissed from active military service for "racial-political reasons." Alfons Lampert and his wife Elsa were then deported to Auschwitz, where they were killed.

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Discrimination against Roma 'is an echo from back then'

Mehmet Daimagüler is Germany's first commissioner for combating discrimination against Sinti and Roma. He says ending such discrimination is a task for all Germans.


Daimagüler is leading Germany's efforts to combat discrimination against Sinti and Roma

The German lawyer Mehmet Daimagüler has long examined the historical legacies of racism and discrimination in Germany and their influence on present state institutions. Born to Turkish parents in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1968, Daimagüler has been dealing with racism for decades. He was a victims advocate during the trial of members of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi terror group that killed at least 10 people, almost all of them targeted for their perceived foreign roots.

In May, Daimagüler became Germany's first commissioner on antiziganism, or discrimination against Sinti and Roma. He told DW that many of the issues he plans to tackle are a result of Germans' failure to come to terms with their country's history, specifically the Holocaust.

Sinti and Roma flags fly on April 8, the unofficial day of commemoration of Nazi genocide of the Roma and Sinti people

"What was suppressed was that the perpetrators were not just Nazis," Daimagüler said. "They were also Germans. Our grandparents had their grandparents murdered — or murdered them themselves. That's why, even after 1945, everything was done so that the perpetrators from that time remained clean. That's why the dead were criminalized. And that narrative, about the inherent criminality of Sinti and Roma people, is an echo from back then."

The stereotype still informs the work of police, prosecutors and judges, Daimagüler said. It is his job to change the mindset of the next generation of officials through recruitment and the teaching, training and professional development of civil servants.
Better education for authorities

Sinti and Roma who have had negative experiences with the police are often less likely to report crimes committed against them. "Many of them have little trust in the police or the public prosecutor — and justifiably so," Daimagüler said. "And it's exactly these invisible cases that politics should, and must, pay more attention to."

"Police officers must regularly attend shooting training, but they should also regularly attend training in human rights," Daimagüler said, calling for Sinti and Roma to be included in the development of the curriculum. "People from the community should be involved in this as an important resource and as equal partners."

A picture on display at Auschwitz showing Roma children in Slovakia before World War II

A new center known as the MIA will permit victims to make complaints without having to go to a police station. "The MIA is going to be an important tool for recording how many such cases there actually are," Daimagüler said. "And this won't just be about criminal cases that could be prosecuted in a court, but also related assaults."

An oft-used racist narrative about "clan criminality" — or perceived mafia-style groups said to be run by gangsters of Arabic or Turkish descent — in Germany also applies to media representations of Sinti and Roma people, Daimagüler said. He said sensationalist media attempted to increase their readership through so-called investigative articles intended to stoke fear and outrage.

"They take frightening crimes committed by individuals and use them to draw conclusions about the behavior of an entire community," Daimagüler said. The reports "like to claim that the cause of such criminal behavior must be cultural and an alleged inability to accept rules."

The Berlin Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism

Such articles demonstrate "a fundamental lack of respect for the craft of journalism" and "irresponsible sensationalism just for the sake of ratings," Daimagüler said. He added that Roma who arrive to Germany as refugees are frequently treated with even more suspicion.

"In general, Roma — especially those from the Balkans, some of whom have been here for decades with uncertain residency status — should be categorized as worthy of protection," Daimagüler said. "It's not safe for Roma there. It's immoral and indecent to send these people back to the danger that awaits them there. At the moment, Roma people who are fleeing Ukraine are being selected at train stations — I am using that word deliberately — and being treated worse than other people."
Decadeslong discrimination

Daimagüler's new role will be heavily informed by an 800-page report issued by an independent expert commission on discrimination against Sinti and Roma that was ordered by the German government. The report documents the continuing injustices against Sinti and Roma people and explains how they have been excluded from the education system and many professions long after Germany's Nazi era ended.

Romani Rose (left), the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, discusses a landmark report on discrimination

The report found that more than half of the incidents of discrimination that Sinti and Roma deal with happen during interactions with public authorities and state institutions. Daimagüler said dialogue with, and feedback and criticism from, Sinti and Roma would be the basis of his work. If he has his way, it will be community members themselves who guide transformation.

Daimagüler is conscious of the fact that he is not Sinti or Roma. He said his job was not to represent Sinti and Roma, but to provide the structure that ensures that the community has a say in political decision-making.

"I know I have to earn the community's trust," Daimagüler said. "The structural inclusion of Sinti and Roma in advisory bodies — and a substantive exchange with organizations and representatives — is enormously important to me and for the quality of our work."

In the end, it will be about the German state and society taking responsibility and ending discrimination against Sinti and Roma — and ensuring that the community is not isolated when combating racism. "Antiziganism is a problem for those who are impacted, but, above all, it's a problem for our society," Daimagüler said, "because antiziganism betrays our own values."

This story was originally written in German.

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Germany: Discrimination against Roma and Sinti on the rise

Roma and Sinti continue to be subject to prejudice in various areas of public life in Germany. The Berlin-based Amaro Foro youth organization has documented incidents in the capital.


Andrea Grunau
DW

MARCH 30,2023

Over the past year, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine have arrived in Germany and most have received a friendly welcome. Some, however, have had to prove they are "real" refugees by showing their IDs in line for food handouts; others have been the target of racist insults. One family was blocked by security forces at the main train station in the capital Berlin, as its members made their way to a COVID test center. The guards tried to impose a blanket ban on them entering the building.

"Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, we have noticed that Roma who fled Ukraine are not identified as seeking protection, but as illegitimate refugees," said Violeta Balog, the head of DOSTA, a documentation center on antiziganism, which is also known as antigypsyism, at Berlin's Amaro Foro, a cross-cultural youth association of Roma and non-Roma. "War and crises strengthen anti-Roma sentiment," she added. Amaro Foro, according to the group's website, means "our city" in the Romanes language

Rise in anti-Roma incidents in Berlin

DOSTA says that Germany has a particular responsibilty because of Nazi crimes against Sinti and Roma in Europe: "The German extermination campaign also took place on the territory of Ukraine, the 'Holocaust by Bullets,' that is, mass shootings."

DOSTA has been documenting cases of racist discriminationagainst people who are Sinti and Roma, or perceived to be, in Berlin since 2014. It recorded 372 incidents in 2021 and 2022, more than ever since it started collecting the data, but thinks that there were probably a great number of unreported cases.

Thousands of refugees arrived in Berlin from Ukraine in 2022

Image: Vladimir Esipov/DW

On the recommendation of the Independent Commission on Antiziganism set up by the German parliament, last year a nationwide Reporting and Information Center on Antiziganism (MIA) was established.

Doubts as to refugee status

Mehmet Daimagüler, the Germany's first commissioner for combatting discrimination against Roma and Sinti, confirmed that Roma from Ukraine had been discriminated against at all stages of their journey from Ukraine to Germany. In one case, German police and rail staff forced more than 30 people to get off a train because their refugee status was doubted.

"I find it intolerable that Roma, descendants of people who survived the Holocaust, some of whom were taken to the gas chambers on Reichsbahn trains, are now being discriminated against on Deutsche Bahn trains," Daimagüler told DW.

Meanwhile, he said, the chairperson of the Deutsche Bahn board and the chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma had discussed the matter, and Deutsche Bahn had committed itself to educating its employees about anti-Roma and Sinti discrimination.


Refugees from Moldova have also faced very negative experiences in Berlin, according to DOSTA. They are often depicted as Roma and "illegitimate refugees," said political scientist Aron Korozs, who added that in Moldova Roma communities hardly had any access to education and health care. He also said that seriously ill people and heavily pregnant women had been deported from Berlin.

Antiziganism in everyday life

Incidents reported include the case of a woman who went to the emergency room of a Berlin hospital because she felt poorly as a result of chemotherapy. She reportedly vomited on the premises and was thrown out by security guards who said to her: "You only come here to eat and drink anyway."

In another incident, a Romanian woman lifted a watermelon in a supermarket to see if it was ripe. Security personnel chased her away "because 'gypsies' always steal." The woman filed a complaint after the racial slur. Sinti and Roma were persecuted under the Nazis and between 250,000 and 500,000 are estimated to have been murdered. In concentration camps, they were often ascribed serial numbers prefaced by a Z for Zigeuner (the German word for "gypsy"), which were tatooed on their arms. Balog said the term was "insulting, racist, hurtful."

DOSTA has found that whether they are shopping, working or dealing with neighbors and landlords, Roma — and people who are thought to be Roma — experience discrimination in all areas of life.

Balog said that it was difficult for people to defend themselves because often their basic needs, including housing and work, were at stake. Many feared the consequences if they stood up against discrimination. Not without reason: One man who turned to Amaro Foro for advice after facing discrimination from his landlord had been given notice, she said.

Figures show only a "fraction of the reality," says Mehmet DaimagülerImage: Martin Schutt/dpa/picture alliance

Antiziganist prejudices and crimes

The 2022 Leipzig Authoritarianism Study found that many people in Germany tended to be hostile when asked about Sinti and Roma. Over half of those surveyed had agreed with the statement "I would have problems with Sinti and Roma hanging out in my area" in eastern Germany, while over a third had agreed with it in the country's west. There was even more agreement with the statement "Sinti and Roma are prone to crime."

Antiziganism has led to a rise in crime against Roma and Sinti in Germany. "In 2022, 145 antiziganist crimes were reported, including 12 violent crimes," the German government said in response to a question from the Left party parliamentary group. Daimagüler told DW that this was the highest figure since these crimes began being recorded in 2017 but probably only showed "a fraction of the reality."
'Discrimination should not be tolerated'

In another case, a Romanian mother who was looking for a kindergarten place for her daughter had been told on the phone that there were vacancies. When she showed up, she and her daughter were sent away and told there were no places. She said that a few days later, an acquaintance of hers "who is taken for white" had been granted a spot at the same kindergarten.

Violeta Balog, Aron Korozs and Valerie Laukat are part of the DOSTA team

Image: Sarah Eick/Amaro Foro e.V.

Balog said that finding a kindergarten place was not the only problem for Roma. She said that many children waited "forever" before being admitted to school. She saide that some school administrators rejected Moldovan children across the board because "they're going to be deported anyway."

She said that even when they did go to school, Roma and Sinti children often faced bullying from classmates and staff. A 2021 RomnoKher study conducted by the nationwide association of Roma and Sinti found that more than six in 10 experienced discrimination at school.

Balog said that racist bullying at school could have a strong impact on the education of children and limit their opportunities. She said that educational establishments had to be open to everybody and that all children should be taught together instead of being divided into seperate classes because of language barriers. She said that children should be given more support to learn German if necessary. Discrimination must not be tolerated, she said, adding there was a need for "independent complaints bodies with powers."

She also criticized the fact that history books often only mentioned the Nazi genocide of the Sinti and Roma in passing. "German Sinti in particular have been part of this society for more than 600 years," she argued, adding that it was unacceptable that "we still live in times of ignorance."

'Unemployment rates hardly differ'

The Berlin State Anti-Discrimination Act (LADG) entered into force in 2020. DOSTA says that progress has been made, but antiziganist incidents have still occurred, including on the part of federal agencies, such as job centers as well as social welfare offices, to which the LADG does not apply.

All children should have the same rights to an education, says Amaro ForoImage: 

Uwe Anspach/dpa/picture alliance

In 2019, Balog said that DOSTA had learned of a Federal Employment Agency document that suspected Romanian and Bulgarian nationals of "organized benefit abuse," through a leak.

She said that the document had since been amended but that in practice benefit payments were often delayed and applicants were frequently asked for "irrelevant" information and documents. DOSTA points out that employment rates for people from Romania and Bulgaria hardly differed from those for the German population in 2021, in order to refute accusations of "poverty immigration."

'Do not lump people together'

Another case is that of a social worker telling a colleague not to pay too much attention to a young woman in a shared residence because she had a Roma background, would soon drop out of school and get married, as that was part of the "culture." Horrified, the colleague replied that she too was Roma, had studied and did not have children. To which the social worker had replied: "Oh, you are Roma? You don't look it."

The Amaro Foro team in Berlin

: Sarah Eick/Amaro Foro e.V.

Aron Korozs said that this was a prime example of how antiziganistic images partly shaped the social work sector, in which a homogeneous Roma culture was that did not exist was assumed. He said that social workers should not lump people together but seek individual solutions.

Amaro Foro spokeswoman Andrea Wierich told DW she was worried about the way Roma and Sinti were depicted in the media. She said there had been some improvement but antiziganist stereotypes had not disappeared. "A beggar is immediately labeled as being Roma, a doctor is not," she said, adding that images contributed to stigmatization. "Roma are often not portrayed as individuals, but as a foreign-looking mass, seen from behind, often wearing long colorful skirts, and with dark hair."

She said that she hoped it would eventually become normal to see Roma and Sinti individuals in the media, "with a Rom presenting the weather in the daily news program, and not only seen as an activist on World Roma Day."

This article was originally written in German.

'Brothers in arms': war brings Ukrainians and Roma closer, for now

Thu, March 9, 2023 

In the ramshackle, predominantly Roma Radvanka district of Uzhhorod in western Ukraine, a soldier from the beleaguered minority proudly showed off a bravery award signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

With shrapnel from Russian bombs still lodged in his arm from fighting around Mariupol, 31-year-old Viktor Ilchak told AFP he "almost died four times" during an eight-month spell on the war's frontlines.

The bravery of soldiers like Ilchak and Roma groups helping Ukrainian refugees are chipping away at ingrained prejudices about the minority, say Roma in Uzhhorod.

"At the front it doesn't matter if you are Roma or not, we considered each other brothers," said the father-of-four.

"Many wondered whether Roma who can't read or write can fight for the army -- they were all surprised that Gypsies are fighting," said Ilchak, a tank mechanic with the 128th Transcarpathian Brigade.

"I told them -- if I am Ukrainian, I have to fight for Ukraine," he said outside his house in a potholed street where several passing cars carried military membership signs on their windscreens.

"They said the Roma don't serve, but they are wrong! In times of need we can be counted on!" shouted his father-in-law Janos Tokar, 58.

- 'Amazing' help -

Roma groups in Uzhhorod -- the largest city in Transcarpathia, Ukraine's westernmost region and home to its biggest concentration of Roma -- detect a shift in attitudes to them due to the war.

"A lot of people have begun saying on social media things like, 'Oh Roma people helped Ukrainians, this is amazing,'" said Anzhelika Bielova, head of the Voice of Romni group.

Its mission is to help young Roma women gain skills and stable jobs, but since the invasion it has also been organising aid for non-Roma refugees.

Groups like Bielova's estimate that there are 400,000 Roma scattered across Ukraine.

Already facing entrenched poverty, discrimination and segregation, the war brought new trauma with an estimated 170,000 Roma fleeing from Ukraine's east and south.

The flow of often undocumented Roma refugees was accompanied by reports of discrimination at border crossings into neighbouring countries and in humanitarian aid queues.

"Our organisation has helped the Ukrainian people a lot," Bielova told AFP in her office, as a queue of both Roma and non-Roma people waited outside for help.

"A lot of our team are internally displaced persons (IDPs), we know how hard it is to live in a new place," said Bielova, 27, a refugee from Zaporizhzhia herself.

- Changing minds -

In Radvanka where many makeshift houses have corrugated metal roofs and noisy goods trains thunder close by, Eleonora Kulchar runs a refugee shelter that is open to all regardless of background.

The 54-year-old initially launched the facility in March to help her "own people", who she saw not getting help at Uzhhorod train station as they fled, before receiving all comers.

"Those who have seen Roma defending Ukraine or helping Ukrainian refugees are changing their minds about us," said Kulchar, the head of a Roma education organisation called Blago.

Almost half the shelter's 70 residents are non-Roma families from Mariupol, Berdyansk, and Kherson.

Upstairs a family from Kherson told AFP they were taken in in November after failing to find a room in Uzhhorod where most hotels are fully occupied by IDPs.

"We were a bit afraid, as before we had no contact with Roma people, but then we saw that everything is ok," said Veronika Komarnitskaya, 37.

"They are just like us," said her mother Lyudmyla Chukhran, 62.

In the yard, Komarnitskaya's 10-year-old son Nikita played football with Roma children, and has even picked up a little of the Romani language.

"The war has brought us closer together, before I would never have believed that could happen," she said while bouncing a Roma child on her knee in the shelter's common room.

Still, Bielova sounded a cautious note about how long the rapprochement will last.

"After we win the war there is much work to do. We have to educate Ukrainians about human rights and dignity if we want to join the European Union," she said.

Ukraine sees bloody battle for Bakhmut as chance to wipe out Wagner's army of convicts

Erin Snodgrass
Wed, March 8, 2023 

Ukrainian servicemen fire with a 105mm howitzer towards Russian positions near the city of Bakhmut, on March 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images

Wagner Group is increasingly relying on its professional recruits as inmates flounder in Bakhmut.


The monthslong battle in Ukraine's east drags on as both sides face mounting losses.


Wagner soldiers have played an outsized role in the battle of Bakhmut thus far.

Wagner Group, the Russian paramilitary organization that sparked global outrage by offering convicted prisoners a chance at freedom in exchange for their fighting in Ukraine, has been forced to draw upon its professional recruits to backfill the ranks of dying inmates in the city of Bakhmut, analysts and an official said.

As Russia draws closer to capturing the former salt-mining city in eastern Ukraine, both sides are facing mounting casualties in the monthslong fight. Russia has lost up to 30,000 soldiers in Bakhmut, according to Western officials, while Ukrainian forces have suffered thousands of deaths and injuries as well amid the ruined city.

As Wagner's forces continue to fall, Russia is turning to more experienced troops to bridge the gap, according to The Institute for the Study of War, which said Monday that both Wagner and the traditional Russian military are committing to higher-quality special forces operators in an effort to conclusively take the city.

Wagner soldiers have played an outsized role in the battle of Bakhmut over the last six months, where its poorly-trained convicts are serving as "cannon fodder" amid a ruthless fight, the National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last month.

A Ukrainian official's recent comments regarding the mercenary group suggest Ukraine sees the brutal fighting in Bakhmut as an opportunity to deplete Wagner's forces once and for all, according to The New York Times. Col. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine's eastern group of forces, told Radio Liberty that Bakhmut marks Wagner Group's "last stand," per the Times.

Over approximately five months of recruiting, more than 40,000 former prisoners accepted Wagner's offer to deploy in Ukraine, US officials said earlier this year. Meanwhile, US intelligence from December suggested an estimated 10,000 professional Russian soldiers, the majority of whom are veterans, were also acting as Wagner soldiers alongside the former inmates.

More than 30,000 of those fighters have since been killed or injured in the fighting, Kirby said last month.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group and a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, called for further reinforcements into Bakhmut on Monday. Unless his request for additional ammunition and bodies is answered, Prigozhin warned that a Ukrainian counteroffensive could cut off Wagner's forces entirely and spell trouble for Russia.

A mural depicting mercenaries of Russia's Wagner Group that reads: "Wagner Group - Russian knights."AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic

Prigozhin previously compared the Bakhmut battle to a "meat grinder," acknowledging that his men were dying at alarming rates, but suggesting the casualties would ultimately be worth it as Ukraine struggles with significant losses simultaneously. He suggested this week, however, that Russia's entire front line would collapse if his fighters fail to secure Bakhmut.

Western military analysts and leaders have said that the battle of Bakhmut is more symbolic than strategic for both sides, especially as Ukraine appears to be on the verge of losing the city. Russia and Ukraine have both indicated that continued fighting is essential to tear down the enemy, even as both sides suffer staggering losses.

Despite speculation that Ukraine was preparing to withdraw from Bakhmut, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that he would send further reinforcements to the city. He warned this week that losing Bakhmut would give the Russians an "open road" to other Ukrainian cities.

The fighting has grown so intense in and around Bakhmut that "fistfights" have broken out between Russian and Ukrainian troops, one Ukrainian soldier told The Washington Post this month.

RETURN OF THE PANZER TANK

A German company is offering Ukraine the benefit — and burden — of being the first military to get its brand-new tank

Michael Peck
Thu, March 9, 2023 a

A Rheinmetall Panther KF51 main battle tank at the Rheinmetall plant in Lower Saxony in July.Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images

Prominent German defense firm Rheinmetall is offering Ukraine its new Panther Kf51 tank.


The Kf51 would leapfrog the other older Western-made tanks that are being sent to Ukraine.


While the Kf51 has advanced capabilities, its newness may create more headaches for the Ukrainians.

While Ukraine waits on the older Abrams and Leopard tanks that the US and European countries have promised to deliver, it may have the opportunity to buy a cutting-edge German tank.

Acquiring the next-generation Panther Kf51 would give Ukraine the chance to leapfrog the older tanks that Western donors are sending — as well the mostly Cold War-era tanks that Ukraine already uses — but taking on an unproven vehicle could further tax Ukraine's military as it struggles to incorporate older Western tank models.

Rheinmetall, the prominent German arms firm that developed the Kf51, seems confident the idea could work. Its CEO, Armin Papperger, told German business newspaper Handelsblatt that the Panther could be delivered to Ukraine "in 15 to 18 months."

"We are talking to Kyiv about exporting the Panther," Papperger said. Interestingly, Papperger said that Ukraine had also expressed interest Rheinmetall's next-generation Lynx infantry fighting vehicle.

An illustration of Rheinmetall's Panther KF51.Rheinmetall Defence

Rheinmetall is reportedly negotiating with Ukraine to build a tank factory there, though it's not clear whether it would produce the Panther or the older Leopard 2 tank.

The Kf51 Panther is a new tank with some old features. Its hull is based on the Leopard 2, which debuted in 1979. But the turret contains Rheinmetall's next-generation Future Gun System, a 130 mm smoothbore cannon that replaces the standard 120 mm found on Western tanks such as the M1 Abrams, Leopard 2, and the Challenger 2.

The Panther also has advanced features, including launchers for HERO 120 loitering munitions that give the tank an on-board kamikaze drone capability. Sophisticated networking capabilities allow it to be integrated into detect-and-shoot kill chains and the ability to control "wingman" unmanned ground vehicles that provide capabilities "such as platoon-level air and drone defense," according to Rheinmetall, which describes the Panther as a "truly software-defined tank."

Rheinmetall presented the Panther at a Paris trade fair last summer and "touted it as the strongest battle tank in the world," according to Handelsblatt.

A German Leopard 2 tank in Munster in May 2019.Christophe Gateau/picture alliance via Getty Images

Two aspects of the Kf51 stand out. One is the autoloader that replaces the crew member who loads shells into the main gun, enabling the tank to have a crew of three rather that the four usually found in Western tanks. (Russian tanks also use an autoloader for a crew of three.)

Like the next-generation Abrams tank, the Panther's turret can be unmanned, with its crew operating the vehicle behind the thicker armor of the tank's hull.

Perhaps not coincidentally, an unmanned turret and on-board drones are also a feature of Russia's next-generation T-14 Armata tank, which first appeared in 2014. Russia's army has only bought a few T-14s, possibly because of the high price as well as production and mechanical issues. The Kremlin also appears reluctant to commit T-14s to combat in Ukraine.

It's also notable that the Panther has a combat weight of just 59 tons. This is lighter than the latest Leopard 2A7, which is 67 tons, and Abrams and Challenger, which weigh 70 to 80 tons, both of which Ukraine is slated to receive. Lighter vehicles can more easily cross bridges or muddy terrain, which are key considerations on Ukrainian battlefields.

An illustration of the Panther KF51.Rheinmetall Defence

But tank design is about tradeoffs, especially when it comes to weight.

One reason the Kf51 is slimmer is because just like the Leopard 2, it is not as thickly armored as the Abrams and Challenger. Instead of bulky armor plate, the Panther relies more on active and passive protection systems, such as jammers, smokescreens, and projectiles to destroy incoming anti-tank rockets.

There is no doubt that Ukraine needs more tanks. Russia has lost almost 2,000 tanks since the war began a year ago, according to a tally by the open-source website Oryx, but Ukraine has lost almost 500 tanks.

While Ukraine has been able to replenish some losses by putting more than 500 captured Russian tanks into service, it is still going to need foreign vehicles as the Soviet-era designs it had before the war are destroyed or worn out.

Nonetheless, one consideration for Ukraine — and any foreign donors who would subsidize its purchase — is that no military has yet bought the Kf51.

Even the best new weapons have teething problems. If Ukraine becomes the first to field the Panther, then it will become the first to deal with the inevitable bugs. With all the challenges that Ukraine already faces, that's a gamble.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master's in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Ukraine's Roma activists working to help at-risk community

Once they worked to ensure equal rights for Ukraine's Roma minority. Now Roma activists are helping locate food supplies, organizing border crossings and raising funds for the war effort.

Roma activist Tetiana uses every spare moment to spread the news

 of what's really happening in Ukraine

Just a few days ago, Tetiana* was planning her wedding and looking forward to starting a new job. But then the Russian bombs began to fly, and everything changed.

"On February 24, at 5 a.m., the first air raid sirens woke me up," said the Roma human rights activist from northeastern Ukraine. "Since then, most of the messages I get only ask one thing: Are you still alive?"

Her friends begged her to leave the country, offering support, an apartment and even another job. But Tetiana won't leave. Her future mother-in-law, 82 years old, can barely make it down to the cellar, let alone to the border. And her fiance can't leave the country, either. Due to martial law in Ukraine, men aged 18 to 60 have to stay and remain available for military conscription.

Tetiana said she feels paralyzed and overwhelmed by what is happening. One day last week, five air raid sirens went off, two of them in the middle of the night. She now uses every spare moment to try and spread the news of what's really happening on the ground in Ukraine.

Natalia, another Roma activist who is also still in the country, recently released a video calling on the world to do more to help Ukraine.

On social media, Tetiana also tries to analyze which places might be safe enough to, for instance, go out and get food supplies.

But there is danger everywhere. One recent night, she noticed strange lights in the distance and contacted the local territorial defense group. They explained that it was likely a group of Russian saboteurs.

"They mark civilian houses in order to attack them," she said. "But leaving the house is just as dangerous. A family from my hometown tried to flee to another part of Ukraine. But they were stopped by Russian troops and killed." DW has been unable to substantiate any of these incidents.

The city of Okhtyrka has come under heavy fire from the Russian military

Tetiana lives in Okhtyrka, a city between Kharkiv and Kyiv that is likely to be used by the Russian military on its way to the center of the country. It has come under heavy fire, and the Ukrainian ambassador to the US recently said the Russian military had detonated a vacuum, or thermobaric, bomb near .

Russia has denied the charge, and the use of such a weapon has yet to be officially confirmed by external sources.

'Crime against humanity'

"What they [the Russians] are doing to our people is a crime against humanity," said Tetiana.

The International Criminal Court said this week it would open an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Russia.

Before the war began, Tetiana was working as an advocate for vulnerable groups in Ukrainian society like the Roma people, and she said they shouldn't be forgotten now

"The Roma were a disadvantaged group even before the war," she said. "We can't even imagine how they are suffering right now. There are reports of Roma being denied access to neighboring countries at various borders."

Official statistics suggest there are around 50,000 Roma living in Ukraine. However, organizations working with local Roma in Ukraine suggest the number could be far higher, up to around 300,000.

Germany's Society for Threatened Peoples, which advocates for minority rights around the world, has called Roma "the forgotten people," pointing out that many living in Ukraine were never eligible for citizenship.

Despite this, local Roma are now fighting alongside their fellow Ukrainians, said Romani Rose, chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. Meanwhile, Roma women and children were fleeing eastern parts of the country alongside their Ukrainian counterparts.

Roma networking

Zola, another Ukrainian human rights activist, was in Berlin visiting her son when the Russian invasion took her by surprise.

"No one really believed this would happen," she said, adding that nobody in Ukraine had been preparing for war. "Now Kyiv is being bombed hourly."

Since she arrived in the German capital, Zola has been organizing aid and connecting people to the various ongoing Roma-organized campaigns .

The European Roma Grassroots Organizations Network has published a statement condemning war crimes against the Ukrainian people, and called on Russia to stop hostilities. Members of the Roma community and allies can sign the statement.

TernYpe, the international Roma youth network, has established a digital noticeboard on the Padlet application to keep people informed. Roma journalists are also collaborating to bring their stories and other related reports to a central website, Nevimos. And the European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture is supporting its Ukrainian partner, the Youth Agency for the Advocacy of Roma Culture, as it tries to raise funds.

All this international support makes Zola proud, as a Ukrainian and as a Roma woman.

Human rights activist Zola has been organizing aid from Berlin

"Many Roma [in Ukraine] have opened their houses and taken people in," she said. "Many have joined the army and they're fighting for our country. The Ukrainian people are united today like they have never been before."

Zola hopes Ukraine will survive as a nation, and that in the end it will become a member of the European Union.

"I'm absolutely convinced that Ukrainians are Europeans," she said. "They proved that in 2014 during the Maidan revolution and they continue to fight for democracy and freedom today."

*Tetiana and Zola requested their surnames not be published due to concerns for their safety.

This article was originally published in German

How Russia’s War Has Hit Ukraine’s Roma People

The Russian invasion has brought fresh hardships for the hundreds of thousands of Romani people in Ukraine, who not only face violence from the invading army but even from the states welcoming refugees.

A woman plays with her child in a sports hall of a high school, transformed into temporary accommodation for people fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Przemysl, Poland, March 9, 2022. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

Sean Benstead

On March 22, a Czech-based Roma human rights organisation confirmed reports of several Romani individuals from Lviv being tied to lampposts and publicly humiliated. This was orchestrated by a local vigilante group called “the Hunters” that prides itself on persecuting Roma who are accused of pickpocketing and stealing. Such vigilantism might be brushed aside by some as an unfortunate consequence of a social order harshened in wartime. Yet the civil and state violence inflicted upon Roma communities that lack legal access to work and services is nothing new – and certainly not unique to Ukraine.

Last year, following the murder of Romani man Stanislav Tomáš by Czech police, I explored the poverty of projects for progressive Romani nation building in the context of extreme deprivation and a concerted aggressive siege from violent state and civil forces. This, I argued, was a historically heroic endeavour – but currently a misplacement of priorities and the energy of social movements. Indeed, Romanestan – the name of a proposed Romani nation – remains in a state of emergency. A year later, nowhere exemplifies this state of emergency more than the situation of Ukraine’s Roma population.

Today Ukrainian Roma find themselves between the massive invading forces of an irredentist and criminal Russian state and comparably smaller and outgunned, but nevertheless armed and battle-hardened, fascist militias. Yet to fully appreciate their place in this emergency, we must also look beyond the war itself.

The conditions of Roma in Ukraine

The 2001 Ukrainian census notes that there are just short of 50,000 people who self-identify as Roma in Ukraine. However, this number is disputed by advocacy organisations, which suggest the number is as high as f400,000, with the largest communities in the regions of Crimea, Odesa, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk. There are three main reasons why official figures are inaccurate, of which we will focus on the first two: 1) Roma people’s reluctance to declare their ethnic origin due to fear of persecution or discrimination; 2) Many Roma individuals in Ukraine do not have identity documents and are not registered as Ukrainian citizens, and are thus stateless; 3) Their incorrect registration by authorities as “Romanians.”

Also read: Putin’s Decision to Shoot for Gold Could Move Global Energy Trade Away From the Dollar

The first reason is a well-founded fear. Ukraine, like much of Europe, has a dark history regarding the treatment of the Romani population. A detailed report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) high commissioner of national minorities confirmed that Ukraine was at the top of the list, alongside other Central and Eastern European states, when it came to rampant skinhead violence against Roma. The study was published in 2000, fourteen years prior to what Vladimir Putin called a putsch by “a gang of drug dealers and neo-Nazis.”

As recently as 2018, to commemorate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, a fascist paramilitary organisation called C14 launched a violent assault on a temporary Romani encampment in Kiev and then went on to stab 17 people from a local Roma encampment in Lviv. More pogroms were reported in 2019 – the year of Volodymyr Zelensky’s election as president – and again in 2020. In response to these brutal attacks, the police response ranged from sporadic and slow arrests to pure indifference. No one has ever been prosecuted. In response to an attack, one Odesa judge ruled that the act of ethnic cleansing in Loshchynivka was “an act of direct democracy.”

These are not historically isolated incidents in Ukraine or the wider region. The history of persecution by Nazi-collaborationist states during World War II, alongside the Stalinist denial of cultural pluralism, is well documented.

Fascist militias are today emboldened and armed with professional military equipment — partly as a result of the 2014 collapse of the Ukrainian state, which in turn desperately clamored for volunteer fighters. And it seems that these incidents are only going to escalate in intensity and barbarity.

The second reason – Roma people’s lack of documents – can be seen as a further symptom of abandonment and the incompetence of state authorities. It is also an effect of discrimination and persecution from both the state and civil society. The scale of statelessness remains unknown even to Ukraine, but the consequences are highly visible. Without legal access to basic services such as health care, education, and formal, legally contracted work, the Roma population finds itself in Dickensian shantytowns and temporary settlements.

Ukrainian Roma are effectively being reproduced as a surplus population, superfluous to the needs of capital or the state, mirroring the condition of Roma across Europe. Given the Zelensky government’s commitment to large-scale privatisation through the State Property Fund – a process affecting even basic utilities – the economic future of the most marginalised didn’t look promising even before the war, with new barriers to accessing even the basic means of everyday existence.

Romani responses to the invasion

In these conditions, Ukrainian Roma communities, like their counterparts across Europe, would have every reason to feel reluctant to rush to the defense of Ukraine’s liberal democratic state. Despite this, Roma in Ukraine are willingly volunteering to join Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, professional military, and international legions. Meanwhile, those who are not engaged in direct combat are engaged in acts of resistance to the invasion that range from capturing Russian tanks, as reported during intense resistance in Kherson Oblast, to building barricades.

Internationally, almost 200 pro-Roma human rights and Romani organisations have condemned the Russian Federation’s war on Ukraine and called on it to end its violent attacks. Their joint statement also calls on the relevant authorities to ensure the human rights of all groups fleeing the war zone are upheld, noting the extreme vulnerability of Roma refugees. In today’s circumstances, Roma families can often be torn from their social networks only to find themselves welcomed by other hostile states on Ukraine’s borders run by right-wing populists.

Also read: By Choosing Not to Condemn Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, India Defies Its Own Belief in Democracy

Despite Putin’s bogus claims of a fascist junta in Kiev, the liberal democratic state – however incompetent and corrupted by institutional prejudice – retains semi-responsive democratic institutions, and at least the promise of a return to a less authoritarian order once peace has returned. To Ukrainian Roma, this is worth defending with their lives. Within the scope of the Ukrainian liberal democratic state, however damaged and dysfunctional, it is still possible to build social movements, benefit from the counsel of human rights organisations, and gain concessions from political and civil institutions.

Given what we have established above, regarding the economic and legal condition of Ukrainian Roma, any talk of human rights and liberal democracy may easily be charged with hypocrisy. And rightly so. Yet the husk of a liberal democratic state still carries a kernel of liberatory potential, however constrained it may be by inequality and institutional prejudice. The point of movements for social justice is to realise the formal rights-based framework of liberal freedom through giving it content. And Romani social and liberation movements have started to make gains in this regard.

Following its election in 2019, Zelensky’s government set up a special authority to identify and meet the needs of national minorities and Romani communities in Ukraine. Further, a national Romani strategy was approved to ensure inclusion measures were followed through on. It is true that, even without a war, these policies would have likely proven fruitless given the scale of the problem, combined with the incompetence and entrenched prejudice among many state authorities.

From the few human rights organisations that operate in the Russian Federation, it is unclear as to the scale and condition of the one million Russian Roma, and only scant information about pogroms in rural areas have come to light. What is clear, though, is that they are cut off from the lifelines of international organising, international networks of solidarity, and responsive democratic institutions.

Meanwhile, many Ukrainian Roma flee to Ukraine’s western borders and, subsequently, into the European Union. While the EU Commission is engaged in ongoing work to tackle issues related to statelessness among member states, many Ukrainian Roma who do not hold valid biometric passports have been turned away from transport to EU states. Despite the blatant breach of Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this has left many stranded in segregated temporary encampments in border towns and villages’ public sports halls. These encampments for the stateless, many of which are in Moldova (not an EU member state), lack food and sanitary facilities. Illness is endemic.

On March 4, the EU activated the Temporary Protection Directive, allowing those fleeing the war to be granted temporary protection in the EU. This should mean that refugees will be given a residence permit, and they will have access to education and to the labor market. At present, this seems to have not been equally applied to a huge number of Roma refugees on the ground.

Those who do make it to EU member states are unlikely to find respite and complete safety. In fact, refugees who have fled to the Czech Republic, the home of murdered Stanislav Tomáš, have found themselves fleeing again due to assaults by locals. That country is just one example among the many EU member states, highlighted by the aforementioned OSCE report, that is marked by harsh anti-Roma racism in addition to social and economic hardship among its Romani population. Here the latent contradictions of liberal democratic freedom again rears its ugly head.

However, amid those contradictions and within that narrow space for agency, we still see a rich architecture of a plurality of Roma civil rights movements that claim varying mixtures of victories and setbacks. Many of these groups have rallied and organised to appeal for humanitarian aid for Ukrainian Roma.

After the guns fall silent

Questions must be raised about what will happen to Ukrainian Roma after this barbaric war.

In the scenario of a less-than-impossible Ukrainian victory, Will the Ukrainian state come to redeem all those Roma lives lost fighting the invader by cleansing its judiciary and police of prejudiced forces? Will the government commit to resolving the endemic statelessness of Roma communities and rebuild a democratic state that is responsive to the needs of the most marginalised?

In the scenario of a victory for Putin’s war machine, will Europe acknowledge the plight of Ukrainian Roma and their heroic defense of an abstract liberal democracy that has never been realised for them? Will European states welcome the stateless as refugees and offer asylum with fully realised, material human rights alongside enforced legal protections?

Given the long history of large-scale violence against the Romani people and their social exclusion, I am doubtful. But large and dramatic societal changes rarely follow smooth historical trajectories and, as one wise man once remarked, decades can happen in a matter of weeks.

Sean Benstead is an activist and writer based in Greater Manchester.

This article was first published on Jacobin.