Antiziganism

An investigation has been launched in the southwestern port town of Patra after a 35-year-old Roma man was asked at a local car dealership to kneel down to sing Christmas carols on New Year's Eve and was set on fire "for fun."

President Klaus Iohannis sent a message on Monday on the occasion of the European Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day, an annual commemorative event organised by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, in which he says that further efforts must be made to educate on the Roma genocide.

The Romanian parliament on Tuesday adopted a law that will punish anti-Roma "verbal or physical" actions with prison terms ranging from three months to 10 years.

A total of 244 deputies voted for the law, which only one MP rejected. Some 20 legislators abstained and eight did not take part in the vote, according to the Romanian parliament's website.

The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said in a report published on Tuesday that the principles and standards on which human rights have been built in Europe over the past seven decades are being increasingly challenged.

Roma should be better represented in the media, state institutions and political organizations, say MEPs, NOVA TV reported. 

The fundamental rights of the Roma remain constantly violated in the EU. This is stated by the European Parliament in a resolution adopted on Tuesday.

Thousands of Bulgarians from different parts of the country, including rockers and football hooligans, joined a mass anti-Roma rally in Asenovgrad on Sunday evening.

The rally followed a group fight last Monday between locals of Roma origin and teenagers from the local canoe kayak team. Nine Roma suspected of attacking the sports team are behind bars awaiting trial.

Aleksandar Vulin, representatives of the Roma National Council, and of Belgrade's Cukarica municipality have taken part the removal of anti-Roma graffiti.

The graffiti called for violence against this ethnic minority, including messages such as, "Death to Gypsies," "Serbia for Serbs," "Not for Gypsies," along with swastikas and "SS division symbols."

On 8 April romani all around the world pay tribute to victims romani during World War II. It was declared as Romani Day in 1990, during the 4th World Romani Congress of the International Organization "Romani Union" in honor of the first major international meeting of representatives of the Romani ethnic group - the first Romani Congress, held on April 8th  1971 in London.

Three policemen and four protesters suffered injuries after violent clashes broke out the rally in Radnevo, the Bulgarian interior ministry said on Thursday.

Around 2,000 people joined the protest on Wednesday evening, following an incident in which four men of Roma origin assaulted three Bulgarians in a street row on Monday.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has called on Bulgaria to immediately stop evictions of Roma and address the problem of anti-Roma rhetoric.

The media statement of the OSCE was issued several days after the European Court of Human Rights demanded the suspension of the demolition of two illegal buildings in the village of Garmen.