Meet the ERRC
Tara Bedard
(Last modified: 2005-03-11 16:17:50)
Stepping

Three years ago, when I joined the ERRC as an intern, I knew little about the situation of Roma in Europe but much about the situation of marginalised segments of the population in other parts of the world.
András Bíró
(Last modified: 2004-05-20 12:37:05)
Chairman of the Board of Directors

András Bíró is a journalist who presently resides in Hungary, a country to which he returned in 1986 after an absence of 30 years.
Claude Cahn
(Last modified: 2004-05-20 12:34:36)
One of these days

This time, when the villagers gathered with their furrowed faces, crossed their arms and blocked the Romani family from moving in, it all went differently...
Kathryn D. Carlisle
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:06:12)
Fortress Italy

Nervous sweat appeared on his forehead as Mr F.V. awaited the hearing that would decide whether his two children, then held in state custody, would be returned. “I’ve learned to expect the unexpected,” he said in reference to his year-long battle with the Italian legal system. His family’s story is revealing of the confusion and pain that that system can create.
Anna Červeňáková
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:07:22)
Human rights in the case of the Roma

My experience as an intern at the ERRC during the summers of 1998 and 2000 was indeed one of the significant ones of my life...
Luke Clements
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:08:15)
Turning the Tide

For more than 20 years I have been representing Roma and Travelling People before domestic UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg...
Andi Dobrushi
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:10:51)
I have been trying to avoid writing this column for several years now. There are many reasons for this, but primarily because I never like to write about myself.
István Fenyvesi
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:10:51)
The Dark Side of the Moon

As this rubric has traditionally been of a personal nature, I would start with some relevant biographical information about myself...
Isabel Fonseca
(Last modified: 2004-11-23 12:23:42)
Arson in Bolintin Deal

The villagers were unrepentant when I visited Bolintin Deal a few months after the attack. On the contrary, they were proud that their efforts had made the evening news and, better still, that the report had clearly inspired similar events across the country.
Gloria Jean Garland
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:10:51)
I recently returned to the United States after living and working for six years in Central Europe -the last three as legal director for the European Roma Rights Center
Veronika Leila Szente Goldston
(Last modified: 2004-08-25 12:10:51)
Roma Rights Then and Now: One Woman's Journey

Who would have thought when I first set foot in Hungary in late 1995 that I was about to embark on a ground-breaking adventure that would immerse me for nearly six years – helping to establish the European Roma Rights Center, the first-ever international organisation dedicated entirely to defending Roma rights?
James A. Goldston
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:54:58)
Identity does matter: an old problem in a new Europe

It is fitting that I should be asked to write a “Meet the ERRC” column after having stopped working full-time for the organisation. My three years in the “Roma rights” field have been so arresting, so infecting, so downright insinuating, that I will never be able fully to leave them behind.
Zarine Habeeb
(Last modified: 2005-03-11 16:17:58)
The Personal is the Political: A Story of Another Journey from India

I have often been asked why I have chosen to come to Hungary and then to work at the ERRC. I have given shorthand answers to this question, sometimes even without thinking a lot. As feminism teaches us, the personal is the political. The identity crisis I experienced in 2002 when genocidal violence was launched against Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat3 had a deep impact on me, a Muslim, who was and continues to be deeply proud of India’s secular and pluralistic traditions. So, to go back to using shorthand phrases, in my mind Gujarat 2002 has a connection to Budapest 2003.
Gábor Halmai
(Last modified: 2004-09-22 13:01:31)
My various identities

In 1988, just before the transition, several of my friends and I established the Openness Club, a free speech organisation.
Deborah Harding
(Last modified: 2004-09-22 13:02:45)
A salute to Romani colleagues and friends

I have worked on Romani issues in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since 1990. As a program officer at the German Marshall Fund (GMF), managing its Political Development in Central and Eastern Europe program, I supported human rights groups and activists who emerged in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania after the revolutions of the last decade.
Ivan Ivanov
(Last modified: 2004-09-22 13:02:45)
Discrimination and the Romani complex

Early in my life, I experienced a violent human rights violation: the Bulgarian government changed my name from the Muslim Romani name which was mine and with which I was born to a "typical Bulgarian" one.
Rita Izsák
(Last modified: 2004-09-22 13:02:45)
Found Path

I FIRST LEARNT OF the ERRC in 2002, when a friend of mine came to the restaurant where I was working during the night to be able to pay my university tax
Rudko Kawczynski
(Last modified: 2004-09-22 13:02:45)
Nationality: Roma Citizenship: Europe

Centuries of discrimination have deprived the Roma of the educational and vocational opportunities and of the social and economic benefits of modern societies...
Deyan Kiuranov
(Last modified: 2004-09-22 13:02:45)
Vendetta on the non-existent: of Kosovo Roma in and out of the international media

So far there have been three distinct stages in the attitude of the international media towards Kosovo Roma...
Angéla Kóczé
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:54:58)
Taking control of our identity

When people ask me about Romani identity, the writers Erving Goffman, Kurt Lewin, Franz Fanon always come to my mind. These are scholars who have elaborated the stigmatised and colonised peoples' identity and given a clear description of the psychological aspects of marginalised groups in society.
Khristo Kyuchukov
(Last modified: 2004-11-23 12:23:34)
Projects in Romani education: Bulgaria

The average number of Romani schoolchildren in Bulgaria in recent years has been around 50,000. Before 1989, the number was about 120,000. The abrupt decrease in school attendance by Roma does not reflect a drop in the numbers of Romani children.
Viktória Mohácsi
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
Inside the box

I was approximately sixteen years old when I first began to work for the media...
Refika Mustafic
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
Opre Roma!

Refika Mustafic is Human Rights Education Co-ordinator of the ERRC.
Éva Orsós
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
My Central European family

Few people were interested in my family background before I became the head of the Hungarian government’s Office for National and Ethnic Minorities in 1995.
Branimir Pleše
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
Creative human rights litigation

The United States can be proud of a series of historic anti-discrimination rulings of their Supreme Court, to name but the famous Brown v. Board of Education of 1954.
Dianne Post
(Last modified: 2005-07-28 12:10:45)
No Time to Warm Up

As a college student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, I was trudging up the hill one cold and slushy spring morning and passed the law school. Outside a group of white male students stood smoking and joking. This was in the 1960s when the civil rights movement and the anti-war movements were both very active and I was involved in both. As I passed the elite boys club, I said, “I could go there if I wanted to.” That was my first real thought about going to law school.
Rumyan Russinov
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
Recently, I have often heard Romani activists and leaders criticising the so-called “professional Roma”.
David Strupek
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
No system, no concept, insufficient mechanisms: legal aid and Roma in the Czech Republic

David Strupek is an advocate practising in Prague. He has been a member of the Czech Bar since 1998.
Deborah Winterbourne
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
"Love thy neighbour"

When I was first asked to write this article, I refused...
Ina Zoon
(Last modified: 2004-09-27 14:55:42)
The manufactured troubles of L'udovit Gorej

L'udovit Gorej is a Rom who was born a Czechoslovak Citizen in 1976. He has lived almost all of his life on the territory of the country now called the Czech Republic.
  European Commission
Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom
Hungarian National Civil Fund (NCA)Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Open Society InstituteThe Sigrid Rausing Trust
Swedish International Development Agency

The ERRC was the recepient of the Max van der Stoel Award (2007)
and the Geuzenpenning Award (The Geuzen medal of honour) (2001).

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