Seminar "Hate speech and Roma rights" in St. Petersburg

In mid-April, a seminar "Hate Speech and Roma Rights" was held in St. Petersburg, where the problems of negative stereotypes formed by the media in relation to this ethnic group were discussed. Pererburg "Memorial" was one of the organizers of this event.

In addition to representatives of the gypsy communities of the North-West region, the executive director of the historical and educational human rights organization "Memorial" Stefania Kulaeva, director of the Institute of Regional Press Anna Arkadyevna Sharogradskaya took part in the discussion of the problem.

In particular, the issue of the problems of Roma in the Kaliningrad region was discussed. For example, according to representatives of the local Roma community, “there is some connection between the Kaskad TV company and the authorities that are opposed to the Roma community. Regularly, there are stories on television that talk about new atrocities committed by members of the Roma community, in every newspaper article there is a phrase “ gypsies drug addicts .

As a result, anti-gypsy sentiments are growing among the city’s residents, the gypsies feel a direct threat to their safety: “We could not stand it and went to the editorial office of the local Komsomolskaya Pravda ourselves. We have only one desire - to be told the truth about us. If he writes, it will be so ," a representative of the Kaliningrad gypsies said at the seminar.

Stefania Kulaeva stated that a lawsuit against the newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets" is currently being considered regarding the article "I don't want to study, but I want to get married" , which was published in August 2005. In it, gypsies were compared with animals, and called subhuman and scum. And A. Sharogradskaya expressed her indignation that, at the same time, Pavel Gusev, the editor-in-chief of MK, is the chairman of the commission of the Public Chamber on communications, information policy and freedom of speech in the media. And that, for her part, she intends to raise the question of the possibility of Pavel Gusev's tenure in this position - after all, people constantly suffer from intolerant, and often openly racist publications of MK.

Sources

• Sokolova Maria. "Sometimes gypsies..." // Lenizdat.Ru. 2006. April 18.