Killing Spree in Slovakia Taps Into a Troubled Vei
Septiembre 7th, 2010 by kfj8jti33Killing Spree in Slovakia Taps Into a Troubled Vein
PRAGUE ― As Slovakia held a day of mourning Thursday to honor the victims of Monday’s violent rampage in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, a picture began to emerge of Concrete Machinethe killer, an unemployed loner who the police said had participated in shooting contests and may have harbored resentment against his Roma victims.
The killing spree,China firm to build heavy machinery assembly facto, in which six members of a Roma family were killed ― including a 12-year-old boy ― has shaken Slovakia,11 labourers electrocuted at govt project site in, a small and predominantly Catholic country. It also has spurred a national debate about the assimilation of the country’s 380,000-strong Roma community, who typically live on the margins of society, stigmatized by poor levels of education, alcoholism and an image of lawlessness.
A debate over xenophobia against the Roma, also known as Gypsies, has been raging in recent months across Europe, most recently in France, where the government deported Roma living illegally in the country. But the issue is particularly sensitive in Slovakia, a young country that was part ofConcrete Machine the former Czechoslovakia and is still grappling with how to integrate its ethnic minorities while forging its national identity.
Tensions with the Roma have been on the rise. Last year a town in eastern Slovakia built a concrete wall to separate a Roma camp from the rest of the town after the Roma were caught stealing fruit and vegetables from neighbors’ gardens.
Anti-Roma demonstrations have been held repeatedly since late last summer, when two Roma gouged out the eye of a man during a robbery in the east.
In March 2009 in Kosice, in eastern Slovakia,China firm to build heavy machinery assembly facto, police detained six Roma boys who were suspected of having robbed an elderly lady. The police forced the boys to undress, slap and kiss each other,Mold, while taking videos of Concrete Machinethem on their mobile phones. After a video of the incident was released by SME,Sounding the 805, a leading Slovak daily, nine policemen were fired. The boys later admitted they had stolen a purse.
While the police and government authorities have been at pains not to attribute any racial motive to the Monday killing, Slovak analysts said the incident had nevertheless tapped into the country’s neuroses about its Roma minority.