Gypsies to sue IBM

Old article - but interesting.

23/06/2004 14:34 - (SA)

Geneva - A Swiss court has cleared the way for Gypsies to sue IBM over published allegations that the computer company's punch-card machines helped the Nazis commit mass murder more efficiently, the plaintiffs' lawyer said.

The Geneva appeals court disagreed with a lower court that refused to hear the case last year on grounds it lacked jurisdiction, the Gypsies' lawyer, Henri-Philippe Sambuc, said on Tuesday.

A Gypsy group filed the lawsuit in Geneva because IBM's wartime European headquarters was in the city. They claim the office was IBM's hub for trade with the Nazis.

"IBM's complicity through material or intellectual assistance to the criminal acts of the Nazis during World War II via its Geneva office cannot be ruled out," said the appeals court ruling. It cited "a significant body of evidence indicating that the Geneva office could have been aware that it was assisting these acts".

In its June 2003 ruling, the lower court said IBM only had an "antenna" in the Swiss city. City archives, however, show that in 1936 IBM opened an office under the name: "International Business Machines Corporation New York, European Headquarters."

No immediate reaction to the ruling was available from IBM's Geneva lawyers, who have previously referred requests for comment to the company's headquarters in Armonk, New York. Company officials there did not immediately return calls.

IBM has consistently denied it was in any way responsible for the way its machines were used in the Holocaust.

No control

The company has said its German subsidiary, Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH, or Dehomag, was taken over by the Nazis before World War II, and it had no control over operations there or how Nazis used IBM machines.

Sambuc maintains that the company's Geneva office continued to co-ordinate Europe-wide trade with the Nazis, acting on clear instructions from world headquarters in New York.

The group represented by Sambuc - Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action - sued IBM for "moral reparation" and $20 000 each in damages on behalf of four Gypsies from Germany and France and one Polish-born Swedish Gypsy. All five plaintiffs were orphaned in the Holocaust.

The campaigners began planning the lawsuit after US author Edwin Black wrote in a 2001 book, IBM and the Holocaust, that IBM punch-card machines enabled the Nazis to make their killing operations more efficient.

Code D4 meant killed

Black said the punch-card machines were used to codify information about people sent to concentration camps. The number 12 represented a Gypsy inmate, while Jews were recorded with the number 8. The code D4 meant a prisoner had been killed.

In addition to six million Jews, the Nazis are believed to have killed at least 600 000 Gypsies, although Gypsy groups say the number could have been as high as 1.5 million.

"It does not appear inconsistent to conclude that the respondent (IBM) facilitated the task of the Nazis in their committing of crimes against humanity - acts which were counted and codified by IBM machines," the ruling said.

IBM's German division has paid into Germany's government-industry initiative to compensate people forced to work for the Nazis during the war.

In April 2001, a class action lawsuit against IBM in New York was dropped after lawyers said they feared it would slow down payments from the German Holocaust fund. German companies had sought freedom from legal actions before committing to the fund.

The Geneva case is the first Holocaust-related action against IBM in Europe, Sambuc said.

Roma crown new gypsy king

27/12/2007 22:45 - (SA)

Bucharest - Hundreds of Roma paid their last respects to the self-proclaimed international king of the gypsies on Thursday in southern Romania, then crowned his son as successor.

Amid chants of "Long live the king", Dan Stanescu placed the golden crown atop his own head after one of his subjects delivered it to him on a red velvet pillow, in a ceremony broadcast live on Realitatea TV.

Stanescu's father, Ilie Badea Stanescu, 55, died on Monday in Costesti in southern Romania from a heart attack.

"I want to accomplish what my father began," the new king said without providing details.

His father was declared king in August 2003 during a controversial ceremony officiated by an Orthodox priest.

The Church's patriarchy criticised participation in the ceremony held at the Curtea de Arges monastery, where several Romanian kings have been crowned and buried.

There are officially 536 000 Roma in Romania, while community leaders claim between 1.5 and two million.

There is also a second self-proclaimed king, Florin Cioaba, as well as an emperor, Iulian Radulescu.

Bush/Cheney Admin. Puts Hundreds of Yellowstone Area Wolves at Risk

While most Americans have been celebrating the holidays, officials in the Bush/Cheney Administration have been working behind the scenes to pave the way for the killing of hundreds of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone area.

We can't let them get away with it!

Please go to Defenders of Wildlife's website to send a message to U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and urge him to abandon efforts to let states start killing wolves and to delay de-listing of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies:

http://action.defenders.org/sneakattack

Over the last several weeks, officials within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been quietly moving forward with rule changes that would allow officials in Idaho and Wyoming to begin killing wolves -- even before gray wolves are removed from the list of federally protected threatened and endangered species.

This latest proposal would jump start plans to use fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and other means to kill hundreds of wolves, leaving few more than 200 of the wolves in Idaho. In fact, three-quarters of the wolves in the Lolo District of the Clearwater National Forest could be removed... even before they are de-listed.

And, unfortunately, it's not just Idaho's wolves that are threatened by the proposal. Hundreds of wolves in Wyoming could be shot and trapped under the new rules -- whether wolves are removed from the endangered and threatened species list or not.

A decision on the proposal is expected in the next few weeks. Please email Secretary Kempthorne right now and let him know that you oppose any proposal that would threaten the long-term future of wolves in the Northern Rockies and Greater Yellowstone Region.

Take action online now at:

http://action.defenders.org/sneakattack

Thanks so much for helping me save wolves!

Gypsies bring wares to town

By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard Saturday, 22 December 2007

There are times when even a free- wheeling gypsy is a stick in the mud as Piesy the coppersmith with the Tinkers and Traders discovered one recent rainy weekend.

The rains fell like in the days of Noah and her truck sank to its diff as soon as she rolled it on to the field.

"This was embarrassing for her," the unofficial secretary for the fair Pru Sahlen said.

"Although Piesy is a long-time gypsy, this was her first fair with us and she had assured us she would be no trouble,"

No problems. After the fair boss, Graham Howie, organised a 12-tonne loader to inch her out of the quagmire, they held a Gypsy Stomp, to flatten the ground.

"We are privileged to have such talent with us, Ms Sahlen said.

The coppersmith's wares and those of the rest of the Tinkers and Traders will be on show at the Railway Land in Main Street, Palmerston North until tomorrow.

"Our fair happens - rain, hail and shine and we have several sayings. One of them is 'It must be set-up day, it's raining' and another is 'It must be Monday, it's sunny'.

MORE

Germany Recognizes Gypsy Holocaust

Berlin, Dec 20 (Prensa Latina) The Upper House of the German Parliament (Bundesrat) Thursday agreed to demand the government build a monument to recall the extermination of the central European gypsies by the Nazi Germany.

The belated apology to the half million gypsies deported and killed in Nazi extermination camps was agreed on the occasion of the 65 anniversary of the signing of Auschwitz decree by the chief of the SS Heinrich Himmler, on December 16, 1942.

When he was leader of the Schutzstaffel, which was a major Nazi military organization exclusively under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Himmler ordered the killing of millions of people for the simple reason of being different.

It was then that 11 million people, half of them Jewish, as well as Polish, homosexuals, Jehovah witnesses and Gypsies in Germany and other occupied countries, were systematically and methodically killed.

Gypsy heat

December 16, 2007 Regional News

Spain’s oldest woman – a gypsy – has gone without heating all her life
WHO needs central heating? Spain’s oldest woman Maria Diaz Cortes – aged 115 – has lived without it all her life.

Living in a shanty town on the outskirts of Seville, she is now refusing to move to an Old People’s Home, with all the mod cons.

Maria, who lives in a shack in the rough area of El Vacie, to the north of the city, is well looked after by her family including youngest daughter, aged 72.

“It is out of the question to move,” her daughter Dolores explained. “She would rather live under a bridge than in a home. Gypsies don’t have that culture of putting their relatives in homes.”

The town hall is now studying a plan to move the whole family into a council house in the city instead.

Maria was born in Granada in 1892 and is thought to be the oldest person in Spain, if not Europe.

The previous oldest was Jeanne Calment, who died in France at 122 in 1997.

A new report has just been issued that shows that the average life expectancy for Spaniards has risen to over 80 years.

The average for women is 83.5 years – just pipped by France – while men reach 79.96.

The figure has risen by four years since 2001 when the average was 79.44.

In the UK men only make it to 77.08 and women to 81.12 years.

100 Gypsy Shakened Istanbul

By Ozi on Thursday, December 13 2007, 22:10

Istanbul is accustomed to host amazing concerts and festivals, but this one was differend and really enormous. Budapest Gypsy (Cigan) Symphony Orchestra is welcomed by artlovers in Istanbul. Gypsy Orchestra is consist of 90 violonists, 10 clarinetists, 6 cymbaloms. This enormous orchestra shaken TIM Art Center with a fantastic concert.

Throughout 2 hours concert, hundreds of artlovers listened enormous orchestra with fascinated ears and amazed eyes. Istanbul artlovers were lucky because they have been first audiences listened the new repetoire of Symphony Orchestra. They have prepared onother surprise too for Istanbul. Gypsie artists terminated first Istanbul concert with ‘Yaverim’ a unique composition from Turkish Art Music. After last concert on 16. december, Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra will launch new concerts in other metropoles of Europe .

Hungary's chief justice defends Gypsies

BUDAPEST, Hungary, Dec. 12 Hungary's chief justice has asked lawmakers to work out more efficient laws to safeguard the dignity of the Gypsy, or Romany, community.

Zoltan Lomnici, president of the Hungarian Supreme Court in Budapest Wednesday denounced a recent march by a far-right paramilitary organization aimed at intimidating the Gypsy minority in the country, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported.

Lomnici, responding to a letter by Erno Kallai, the minority ombudsman, said any discrimination by race, religion or gender is unconstitutional and unacceptable.

Some 300 members of the neo-Nazi Hungarian Guard, sporting black dress and carrying red-and-white striped banners, in a hate showing move Sunday marched through a predominantly Gypsy village outside Budapest.

Kallai's letter appealed to politicians and public officials to take stand on the Sunday neo-Nazi march.

Lomnici reiterated Hungary needed amended laws that would easily cope with any actions displaying hatred and threats towards Gypsies and other national minorities.

He confirmed he had already sent proposals relating to his ideas to the parliament's constitutional and judicial committees.

Shelter or Prison?

For more than a decade, PETA has routinely fielded serious complaints from volunteers, employees, and visitors alleging cruelty and terrible neglect at All Creatures Great and Small (ACGS)—a "no-kill" shelter in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

Illness runs rampant among the estimated 400 dogs and 300 cats who are warehoused in an inadequate facility at ACGS. Animals sustain injuries daily—the majority of which are ignored, no matter how severe and painful they are.

PETA's undercover investigation—spanning seven months—revealed blatant, ongoing violations of state animal protection laws, state and local health and environmental laws, state laws applicable to the solicitation of charitable contributions, and state laws applicable to the administration of state payroll and income taxes. In April 2007, representatives of PETA and the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) met with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture (NCDA) and presented extensive documentation of systemic animal abuse and neglect at ACGS.

Undercover Investigation »

Mars Candy Kills Animals

Got a sweet tooth? Think twice before picking up a Mars candy bar! You should know that candymaker Mars, Inc.—creator of M&M's, Snickers, Twix, Dove, Three Musketeers, Starburst, Skittles, and other candies—funds deadly animal tests, even though there are more reliable human studies and not one of the tests is required by law.

Mars is currently funding a deadly experiment on rats to determine the effects of chocolate ingredients on their blood vessels. Experimenters force-feed the rats by shoving plastic tubes down their throats and then cut open the rats' legs to expose an artery, which is clamped shut to block blood flow. After the experiment, the animals are killed. Mars has also funded cruel experiments in which mice were fed a candy ingredient and forced to swim in a pool of a water mixed with white paint. The mice had to find a hidden platform to avoid drowning, only to be killed and dissected later on. In yet another experiment supported by Mars, rats were fed cocoa and anesthetized with carbon dioxide so that their blood could be collected by injecting a needle directly into their hearts, which can lead to internal bleeding and other deadly complications.

Click here to find out more about Mars' cruel experiments.

Mars' top competitor, Hershey's, has pledged not to fund or conduct experiments on animals. Other major food corporations—including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Ocean Spray, Welch's, and POM Wonderful—have also publicly ended animal tests after hearing from PETA.

Click here to read PETA's letters to Mars CEO Paul Michaels.

Tell Mars to Drop Deadly Animal Tests!

ROMANIANS WANT ROMAS TO BE GYPSIES AGAIN

19:25 Mon 10 Dec 2007 - Rene Beekman

Romanians were afraid to be confused with Romas and wanted representatives of this ethnic minority to use the name Gypsies, Romanian dialy România Liberă said on December 10.

The majority of Romanians was said to be of the opinion that the incidents in Italy, of which Romanian citizens were the victims, had been ignited by media publications in which the terms Romanian and Roma were confused. Which was why Romanians wanted a return to the classical name for Romas, Gypsies, Dnevnik daily said.

A young Roma with Romanian citizenship was arrested in Rome in October on the accusation that he had robbed and murdered a 47 year-old Italian. After the incident, the Italian parliament accepted a decree, which would make it easier to expel EU citizens in the name of national security. Prefectures in Italian cities immediately started expelling immigrants, most of them Romanians. Around the same time, Romanian citizens had been attacked in several incidents by Italians.

Public opinion research by Gallup Romania, ordered by the Romanian agency for juridical strategy, showed that, according to 76 per cent of Romanians, foreigners frequently confused Romanian and Roma. According to 52 per cent of those interviewed, use of the word Gypsy would be correct, despite the fact that the ethnic group itself preferred to be called Romas. However, 34 per cent did not agree with the use of the word Gypsy.

More than half of the Romanians who had family in Italy, have been in touch with them since the incidents. Listening to the stories of their relatives, 44 per cent said media represented the situation more dramatically than it really was.

Ninety-one per cent of those who were interviewed, said they have no intention to go to work in Italy in the next six months and 81 per cent said they did not want to go to work in any EU country, România Liberă said.
According to a spokesperson of the agency for juridical strategy, Alfred Boulai, these figures were not the result from incidents in Italy, but from the fact that "those who had reasons to leave, already did so".

The emigration wave of Romanian labour force to the EU also dropped because "the large difference in standards of living has decreased," Boulai said.

Gypsy Clans Feud Over Fortunetelling Biz

By GILLIAN FLACCUS

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A dispute between two Gypsy clans over control of the fortunetelling trade in this Southern California city has spilled into court, offering a rare glimpse of an insular culture that has long settled scores according to its own Old World rules of honor.

The turf war in well-to-do Orange County has unfolded like a gangster movie, with allegations of death threats, a graveside scuffle, and nicknames like "White Bob" and "Black Bob" — details revealed in a police report and requests for restraining orders.

"The older Gypsies are pulling out their hair, not wanting the courts in our business because they'll find out too much about us," said Tom Merino, who is distantly related to one of the clans but has spurned his heritage. "Ignorance is the Gypsies' weapon against the outside world."

The Stevens and Merino clans, like other Gypsy families, have run numerous fortunetelling businesses in Southern California for decades.

The trouble started two years ago when Edward Merino and his wife, Sonia, opened fortunetelling parlors in two trendy resort sections of Newport Beach, not far from where the Stevenses did business.

Members of the Stevens clan promptly broke in, stole a credit card machine and threatened to kill the Merinos if they didn't shut the places down, the Merinos claim in court papers. Since then, the bad blood has only gotten worse.

The Stevenses "are very territorial," Merino attorney Tom Quinn said. "This is crazy stuff."

(MORE)

Hall packed for 'gypsy' meeting

By Jon Wills

AROUND 200 people crammed into Cotford St Luke Community Hall last night amid fears that the village could face an influx of Romany gypsies.

The controversy centres on three mobile homes which were put on the site at the weekend without planning permission.

The mobile homes are owned by 39-year-old Henry Small, who told the meeting that they were just for himself and his family. He also assured residents that there were no plans for anyone else to join him site.

But many in the hall were not convinced and demanded to know what Taunton Deane Council, which has already issued two stop notices on the site, was planning to do next.

Tim Burton, development control manager for the council, outlined the legal position.

Belly Dancers in Istanbul Bulldozed to Make Capital of Culture

By Seda Sezer

Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Sukru Punduk says his family has lived in Sulukule, Istanbul's Gypsy quarter, for six centuries and he won't be driven out by laptop-carrying, stroller-pushing yuppies.

The city plans to bulldoze Sulukule to make way for 620 townhouses as part of its effort to spruce up the area by 2010, when Istanbul will be the European Capital of Culture.

Punduk, a tom-tom player whose home is on the demolition list, is leading the fight against the redevelopment project. He says it will destroy a community that's produced some of Turkey's best-loved musicians and belly dancers, and price the city's Gypsies, also known as Roma, out of their historic home.

``I've seen the models they've made for the new housing,'' says Punduk, 38. ``There are little model people carrying laptops or pushing prams, but no women in headscarves, no horse- carriages, no one playing the tom-tom. The Gypsies don't exist.''

On the streets of Sulukule, the scent of lentils from a soup canteen mixes with the aroma of horse dung and hashish. Children, one carrying a one-legged baby doll, play in the rubble of some of the 20 houses that have already been knocked down.

Other homes in the enclave, surrounded by 5th-century Byzantine walls on the European side of Istanbul, were abandoned by owners who accepted compensation from the city. They now house chickens and the horse-drawn carriages used to ferry tourists on sightseeing excursions. Black numbers on the walls mark another 600 slated for demolition early next year.

(MORE)

Poverty and exclusion blight Roma

By Oana Lungescu
BBC European affairs correspondent, Avrig, Romania

The European Commission is set for an unprecedented meeting with Roma (Gypsy) people from all over Europe.

It is a response to the challenge posed by what has become the biggest ethnic minority in the enlarged European Union.

Europe's roughly 10 million Roma remain the poorest of the poor, often migrating abroad in search of work.

The recent murder of an Italian woman sparked off a wave of hostility against the Roma and dozens of expulsions from Italy.

The main suspect is Nicolae Romulus Mailat, a migrant from Avrig, in central Romania.

Crowded shack

His younger brother Gheorghe showed me the family home - a tiny one-room wooden shack, where four people cook, eat and sleep in two beds propped up with bricks. Most of the light comes from the television.

"Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, it's all here," Gheorghe explains. "We went to Italy to get enough money to build at least another room."

A tall 16-year-old who rarely smiles, Gheorghe has never been to school.

Several other brothers, he tells me, are in mental institutions or foster care, and one drowned while crossing a river on horseback.

Eight months ago, they sold the horse to pay for the bus tickets to Italy.

"It was better in Italy, it was easier to get by," says Gheorghe.

In Romania, he earns less than $10 (£4.90) a day picking corn or potatoes. In Italy he worked on building sites for $60 (£29) or more.

His mother used to collect scrap metal or beg.

After Nicolae's arrest, the family fled Italy.

But when they tried to return several weeks later, the Italian border police would not let them back in.

Italy setback

"They told us we were up to no good and we should stay in our country," Gheorghe complains.

The Mailat family home, if you can call it that, is at the edge of an illegal Roma settlement in Avrig, at the end of a dirt track where the mud comes up to your ankles and dogs gather in packs to keep visitors away.

The mayor, Gheorghe Fraticiu, says there are plans to install electricity and running water.

But until then, people carry water in buckets from the nearby stream, which is overflowing with rubbish.


These miserable living conditions have driven most of Avrig's 800 Roma abroad.

Ilie Linguraru, an elderly man with a bushy moustache, can barely earn a living by making traditional wicker brooms and baskets.

He and his wife had plans to travel to Italy, but now - like everybody around here - he is too scared to go.

One man, he says, has shamed all of Romania.

But not everyone is complaining.

Next door, Viorel Floca and three of his sons have slaughtered a pig in the middle of the road and are busy scrubbing it clean with hot water and a plastic brush, eagerly watched by several grandchildren - some barefoot despite the cold.

They may not look it, but these Roma are not poor.

Here to stay

The men work as shepherds, own quite a few horses and pigs, and Mr Floca would not even consider emigrating.

"I'm not leaving my country," he says proudly.

"Who wants to work, should work here in Romania. Why should I go abroad to steal or pull faces to beg? God has given me strength and health, so I'm staying here in Romania."

Only a short drive away from Avrig's gypsy shantytown is Sibiu, this year's European capital of culture and a thriving city.

As in the whole of Romania, alarm bells are ringing about a growing labour shortage.

One local factory has even hired about 100 metal workers from India.

Some 35-40% of Roma children don't have access to school
Magda Matache
Roma rights spokeswoman

Some employers argue that the Roma are either lazy or lack the right skills, while the Roma claim they are being discriminated against.

What is clear is that despite millions of dollars from the EU and a government integration strategy, change is slow to come.

Magda Matache, executive director for Romani Criss, a Roma human rights group, says at least 40% of the Roma population is unemployed.

"Although a lot of improvements have been made in the education system, the level of illiteracy in the Roma community is still high and 35-40% of Roma children don't have access to school," Ms Matache explains.

"Roma families will not send their children to school because they don't see the importance of it, as after they finish school they won't get a job, they won't get equal treatment."

Romani Criss has started a television campaign to change perceptions.

Now that Romania is in the EU, the advertisements say, the Roma should not remain on the margins.

But even the most optimistic think it will take a generation or more until people like Gheorghe Mailat can feel at home in their own country and the rest of Europe.