RomNews Bulletin in Australia [Dec. 1999] RomNews Bulletin in Australia ( Owen Durkin for RNN) December 1999 Thanks for all the reports and the photos also, Asmet. We use much of your reports in our monthly publication "Roma News Bulletin". This newsletter contains news about Roma overseas, mainly in Europe, and mainly about civil rights, social conditions and meetings. The newsletter is sent to all our members in Australia, New Zealand and England. It is also sent to government ministers, opposition "shadow ministers, and key persons in Immigration, Multicultural Affairs and Foreign Affairs government departments. It is especially useful information for the Examiners who decide whether to accept or refuse applications for refugee status. Our reports have been useful already in getting Paja Jovanovic accepted as a refugee. Publicity and Political Support for Kosovo Roma refugees We have used your photos in fund-raising events and supplied them to the musicians who did independent fund-raising in Brisbane. We also put the photos on display at the annual Romani Round-up in Bendigo on 26-28 November. This year the gathering was attended by many Macedonian Roma from Melbourne. Their leaders included Ivan Zekirovski, Yashar Ali, and Camil Ismailovska. Camil had just come back from a visit to Macedonia and had a video report of conditions in the camps, including the protest march. Maybe you know these people? One of our members is trying to get this video shown on Australian TV station SBS - this is the government-funded national network which specialises in ethnic programs. We have also proposed a joint letter by Romani Association of Australia and the Victorian Romani Phralipe Association (Macedonian Roma) to the Minister for Foreign Affairs saying a national meeting of Roma in Australia have asked the Australian government to be aware of the prejudiced conditions being suffered by Roma in refugee camps in the Balkans, including discrimination by Red Cross and Red Crescent, and indifference by UNHCR. The letter asks the government to use its influence on international aid agencies to provide equal treatment to all minorities. The letter also asks the government to direct Australian aid agencies that work overseas, like Austcare, to give special attention to the needs of Roma. We will do a press release when the letter is sent to the Minister. At present we are waiting for the Macedonians to tell us what they think of the draft letter. We hope that these actions will provide some assistance to Roma in Kosovo and in the various places where they have since fled. Governments do not take much notice at first but but we should eventually get some response if we keep at it and if enough people join us in lobbying politicians and other important people. Kosovo Roma were in Australia 4,000 refugees from Kosovo were given three months temporary asylum in Australia. It appeared that all the refugees selected were ethnic Albanians and we could not find any Roma among them. However a few days before the last big group was sent back to Kosovo, we heard that there was a Romani family among them and that this family wanted permanent asylum in Australia. The presence of Roma among the 4,000 was not known because any Roma present concealed their identity as Roma. We tried to make contact with that family but there was a misunderstanding and the family had already left before we arrived. That made us very depressed, because we were very confident that the family would have been allowed to stay permanently, based on the Department of Immigration's current acceptance of our advice about severe discrimination, oppression, and racially motivated crime against Roma in Kosovo. After that incident there was just 400 Kosovar refugees left in Australia, and they were all ones trying to stay in Australia permanently. We found the lawyer who was presenting the case for 350 of them and asked him if he knew of any Roma among the Kosovar refugees and explained to him that their case for being allowed to stay in Australia would be strengthened if they identified themselves as Roma. He told us that he had interviewed them all, one person at a time and alone, and knew all their stories; there was no Roma among them. The Romani family that wanted to stay was named Misini from Drobesh in Gornja, near Pristina. They are wood gatherers. The father was Rashit, mother Hajriji and there are four sons and four daughters. They were sent home 23 September 1999. We heard that they were liked by the townspeople of Singleton when they were in a camp in Australia. Is there any news of these people?
Thanks for all the reports and the photos also, Asmet. We use much of your reports in our monthly publication "Roma News Bulletin". This newsletter contains news about Roma overseas, mainly in Europe, and mainly about civil rights, social conditions and meetings. The newsletter is sent to all our members in Australia, New Zealand and England. It is also sent to government ministers, opposition "shadow ministers, and key persons in Immigration, Multicultural Affairs and Foreign Affairs government departments. It is especially useful information for the Examiners who decide whether to accept or refuse applications for refugee status. Our reports have been useful already in getting Paja Jovanovic accepted as a refugee.