Roma Rights And Civil Rights

This is the first book-length work to offer a sustained comparison of Roma and African Americans.

Realizing Roma Rights investigates the ongoing stigma and anti-Roma racism and documents a growing, vibrant Roma led political movement engaged in building a more inclusive and just Europe.

There are approximately ten million Roma in Europe, making them the continent’s largest non-territorial minority. Despite this fact, the Roma continue to experience routine discrimination and marginalization in European countries. As a result they are seldom engaged in national political activism and are frequently at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. The severity of exclusion experienced by the Roma in societies which have long paid heed to the notion of individual, universal human rights - combined with their geographical dispersal and heterogeneous nature - makes the study of the Roma highly informative. This book examines the theoretical debate concerning the most appropriate way of protecting the fundamental human rights of the Roma, which also illuminates ways in which the rights of minority groups can be protected more generally. As a result, this work will be a valuable resource for social scientists and practitioners in the field of human rights.

There are approximately ten million Roma in Europe, making them the continent’s largest non-territorial minority. Despite this fact, the Roma continue to experience routine discrimination and marginalization in European countries. As a result they are seldom engaged in national political activism and are frequently at the bottom of the economic and social ladder. The severity of exclusion experienced by the Roma in societies which have long paid heed to the notion of individual, universal human rights - combined with their geographical dispersal and heterogeneous nature - makes the study of the Roma highly informative. This book examines the theoretical debate concerning the most appropriate way of protecting the fundamental human rights of the Roma, which also illuminates ways in which the rights of minority groups can be protected more generally. As a result, this work will be a valuable resource for social scientists and practitioners in the field of human rights.

Based on first-hand accounts from Roma communities, Romaphobia is an examination of the discrimination faced by one of the most persecuted groups in Europe. Well-researched and informative, it shows that this discrimination has its roots in the early history of the European nation-state, and the ways in which the landless Roma have been excluded from national communities founded upon a notion of belonging to a particular territory. Romaphobia allows us to unpick this relationship between identity and belonging, and shows the way towards the inclusion of Roma in society, providing vital insights for other marginalized communities.

The situation of the Roma in Europe, especially in the former communist states, is one of the more important human rights issues on the agenda of the international community, especially in the Euro-Atlantic bodies of integration. Within European states that have Roma populations there is a growing awareness that the matter must be confronted, and that there is a need for a concentrated effort to solve social problems and ease tensions between the Roma and the European nations among which they dwell. This volume is the result of an international conference held at Tel Aviv University in December 2002. The conference, one of the largest held among the academic community in the last decade, served as a unique forum for a multidisciplinary discussion on the past and present of the Roma in which both Roma and non-Roma scholars from various countries engaged.

The volume presents the results collated in the frames of the fact finding project led by the editor. The analysis includes the examination of a large number of legal documents and policy statements issued by national authorities and the international community on the matter. A critical overview is also made about the various Roma-specific political campaigns on national and European scale. The second half of the book contains interviews with activists that assumed a leading role in school desegregation. These testimony pieces have been critically reviewed by educational and policy analysts from the concerned countries.

Explores the evolving human rights of Roma in Eastern Europe's recent history, and the complex politics of Roma rights today.