“Acknowledging Roma history and addressing current problems” are the two fronts that need to be worked on, Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić stressed in a statement issued on the eve of an online conference to be held from 7 to 9 April.
Entitled “Roma Youth: Together for Emancipation and Empowerment”, the conference will mark International Roma Day, celebrated on 8 April. More than 120 participants will discuss a recent recommendation by the Committee of Ministers calling on Member States to include the history of Roma and/or Travellers in their school curricula. Adopted in July 2020, the text emphasises the importance of teaching about the Roma Holocaust. “From the Baltic to the Balkans, fascist forces executed them by the hundreds of thousands”, Marija Pejčinović Burić points out. “Yet the mass killing of Roma people was not even raised at the Nuremberg trials”, she added.
Proposals for action to combat current expressions of antiziganism such as online hate speech, distortion of history and Holocaust denial, as well as segregation, bullying and discrimination against children and adults in schools, the labour market and access to housing and health care will also be discussed.
In the year 2021, which marks the 50th anniversary of the first World Roma Congress and the birth of the Movement for Roma Equality and Identity, the Secretary General calls for “a brighter future for Europe’s Roma and Travellers and thus for Europe as a whole”.
Link to the conference: https://bit.ly/31QjjSJ
Link to the recommendation: https://bit.ly/3cVHQfz (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)