film unmasking European Roma apartheid

Hindus & Jews ask Hollywood to produce a feature film unmasking European Roma apartheid

Hindus and Jews have urged Hollywood to come out with a major feature film exposing the apartheid of 15-million Roma people of Europe and their centuries of maltreatment.

Rajan Zed, acclaimed Hindu statesman; and Rabbi Jonathan B. Freirich, prominent Jewish leader in Nevada and California in USA; in a statement in Nevada today, said that Hollywood had highlighted the persecution of various communities/groups/religions from time to time but had virtually stayed apathetic and silent spectator to the apartheid conditions faced by European Roma.

Zed and Freirich pointed out that alarming condition of Roma people was a social blight for Europe and the rest of the world as they reportedly regularly faced social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, language barriers, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalization, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, racist slogans on Internet, etc.

Rajan Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, and Rabbi Jonathan Freirich, argued that it was like an undeclared apartheid and it was almost total societal exclusion of Roma. The maltreatment of Roma was outside even the European Union norms. Roma issue should be one of the highest priorities of human rights agenda of Europe and world. According to a recent report of European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, one in two Roma considered that they had been discriminated against, at least once, in the previous 12 months.

Zed and Freirich further said that references to Roma people in Europe reportedly went as far back as ninth century AD. How many more centuries Roma had to reside in Europe to prove that they were “real and equal” Europeans like any other, they asked.

Many Hollywood and other entertainment bigwigs had successfully worked against South Africa’s apartheid in the past. Roma are believed to have their roots in the Indian subcontinent.

ENDS

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