ERIO newsletter - Special Issue on Anti-Roma Campaign in UK Press Brussels , 18 February 2004 Dear friends, Last month, we were shocked by a new, extremely racist campaign in the British press against Roma. Over several days, British tabloids ran stories pretending that Great Britain will be facing an invasion by East European Roma following the entry of several Central and East European countries in the EU on 1st of May. The stories had little background and were basically built on racist stereotypes representing the Roma as the typical welfare scroungers who would suck the British welfare system dry. ERIO reacted with a press release which we sent to British and EU media as well as with a series of articles. We also sent an open letter to Denis MacShane, UK 's Europe Minister, one of the few politicians to openly speak out against this campaign of hatred. Our campaign had a large feedback which we believe is not over yet. We have been contacted by several major media, BBC, ITN and The Guardian to name just few of them. Both, our Director, Angela Kocze, and our Deputy Director, Valeriu Nicolae, gave interviews to the British press. Valeriu Nicolae wrote an editorial for the European Voice, which was published on 12 February, and we were quoted in several other magazines. ERIO is extremely concerned by the fact that media in a country which is today considered as a traditional EU member state and a cradle of democracy can overtly display racism and call for hatred against Roma. We are even more worried about the reactions by the British government, which by announcing tighter controls on the distribution of social welfare and plans to temporarily exclude citizens from the new member states has given alleged credit to the racist allegations put forward by the press. We are currently in contact with several British and European organizations and analyzing ways how to make sure that campaigns like the ongoing one will definitely become a thing of the past in an enlarged Europe. We hope for the support of European policy makers in this endeavor. In our press release we have called upon them to take Enlargement as an opportunity to enhance efforts to improve the situation of Roma in both parts of Europe. More detailed information on our campaign is available on our website which we keep constantly updated. We are looking forward to receive your reactions and ideas for further and eventually common actions on this issue. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- European Roma Information Office 17, avenue Edouard Lacomble B - 1040 Brussels e-mail: office@erionet.org URL: www.erionet.org Tel.: 00 32 2 733 34 62 Fax: 00 32 2 733 38 75 Valeriu Nicolae -Deputy Director European Roma Information Office Av. Eduard Lacomble 17 1040 Bruxelles Tel: 02 733 34 62 GSM: 04 76 538194 ========= World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) listserv ========= Send mail intended for the list to <wcar@hrea.org>. Archives of the list can be found at: http://www.hrea.org/lists/wcar/markup/maillist.php To subscribe to the list, send a message to <majordomo@hrea.org>, with the following text in the message: subscribe wcar To unsubscribe from the list, send a message to <majordomo@hrea.org>, with the following text in the message: unsubscribe wcar If you have problems (un)subscribing, contact <owner-wcar@hrea.org>.
[Reply to this message] [Start a new topic] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index] [Subject Index] [List Home Page] [HREA Home Page]