Europe’s Roma face hatred, discrimination, evictions
Young Roma mother Claudia Varga holds her infant daughter Raluca on the only street in the abjectly poor Roma settlement of Ponorata on September 11, 2013 in Ponorata, Romania.
BRUSSELS, Belgium — Wherever one looked in Europe this summer, there was bad news for the Roma people — the gypsies — and it's prompting concern that hardening attitudes are making life more difficult for some of the continent’s most disadvantaged people.
In the Slovak city of Kosice — chosen as a European capital of culture this year — residents erected a 6-foot wall to segregate a Roma neighborhood.
August saw police battle with hundreds of far-right protesters who tried to storm Roma districts in towns across the Czech Republic.
Three men were sentenced for life in Hungary for a string of racist attacks that killed six Roma, including a 5-year-old boy.
Farther west, there were high-profile cases of Roma evictions in Italy, France and the Netherlands.
Read the full story: Europe’s summer of hate