Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 3rd August. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called to stand against bigotry “wherever and whenever it appears”, as he paid tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Roma and Sinti brutally murdered during the Second World War by the Nazis.
UN stated that on the night of 2 August 1944, the last 4,300 Roma and Sinti in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were murdered by the Nazi forces, despite their fierce resistance.
Over 500,000 members of the Roma community were perished which represented at least a quarter of their total population at the time.
The Nazis’s genocidal campaign also claimed the lives of 6 million Jews and targeted LGBTIQ+ individuals, persons with disabilities, political dissidents and other minorities.
Mr. Guterres in a message marked the European Holocaust Memorial Day for Roma and Sinti also honored the survivors and commended the courage of their resistance.
He warned that the prejudice that fuelled the Nazis’s atrocities did not end with their downfall.
“It remains today. The sad reality is that Roma people face rampant discrimination in all areas of life and all parts of the world, not least in Europe,” he said.
“Extremist and xenophobic groups are spreading hate speech, scapegoating marginalized communities and sowing fear and division.”
Mr. Guterres urged everyone around the world to stand together and fight bigotry in all its forms.
“We must stand together to protect and promote the human rights of Roma and to build a world in which all people live in dignity, peace and freedom,” he added.
He renewed the UN commitment as an “unwavering ally in that cause”.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk in a separate message cautioned against the “unimaginable horrors” that can flow from hatred and dehumanization.
“We must heed the lessons of history,” he told, via video, participants at the Passing on Memory for the Future of Holocaust Remembrance and Education Conference in Kraków, Poland.
“Discrimination, exclusion, marginalization. This is centuries old, but persisting today against a backdrop of escalating hate speech against minorities more generally, including on social media and by some populist leaders,” he said
Mr. Türk shared personal recollections of the consequences of anti-gypsyism in the immediate aftermath of the Kosovo conflict, where he was involved in establishing a human rights monitoring initiative to address the discrimination and violence faced by Roma, Egyptian and Ashkali communities.
He added that the Roma in Europe continue to face severe difficulties, as revealed in a 2021 European Union human rights survey. It found that 17 per cent had endured some form of hate-based harassment in the past 12 months and that almost 80 per cent were at risk of poverty.
Mr. Turk welcomed some positive steps, noting that Sweden’s efforts on public memorialization and Germany’s appointment of a Federal Commissioner on anti-gypsyism.
He urged “Much more needs to be done, though, to ensure all these communities are able to access their rights to education, work, housing, health, public services and more,”.
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