Madam, - The tone and general orientation of Paddy Agnew's report on the reaction in Italy to the recent killing of an Italian woman by a member of the Roma community disturbs me (Nov 23rd ).
I feel the article reinforces the centuries-old prejudice and discrimination against the Romani people with whom the Irish Traveller community identify. Just as the Irish Travellers are very often perceived by the settled community as involved in petty crime or worse, so too the Roma people have been and continue to be seen as a homogenous criminal group, especially throughout Europe.
The Romani people were always a people on the move without a homeland of their own. They originated in India and migrated via the old Byzantine empire into eastern Europe.
They are now spread about in North Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, the Balkans, the USA and western Europe.They suffered brutally under the Nazis where, alongside the Jewish race, an attempted genocide took place.
Afterwards under the Soviet control of eastern Europe they again suffered very active discrimination and were defined as a "socially depraved stratum of society". Forced sterilisation policies on Romani women were practised until recently in many parts of Europe including Norway until 1977. In the early 1990s tens of thousands of Roma people were forcibly deported from Germany into eastern Europe where they met further hostility. It is a shocking indictment of our so-called civilised society that a people are so marginalised no matter where they go in search of a better life.
The human rights of these people are not adequately protected throughout the EU, where they are discriminated against and stereotyped as a criminal people.
Is it not time that the Romani people had a permanent home of their own where they could live as real human beings without fear of persecution and active discrimination? - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER , Malahide, Co Dublin.