I am the positive example and chance to say that there is a possible mission to be successful as a Roma person, in some non-Roma environments. Over here we have a perception to be mono-ethnic – we have NGOs which only have Roma people, media with only one or other ethnic community. That is why I say that I am one of the rare examples where I worked in a multi-ethnic community. I don’t work inside of the Roma community, I don’t only work for Roma issues, yes, I do fight for the rights of the Roma and against discrimination, but we also fight for the rights of the LGBT community, for the rights of the women, rights of the Macedonians, Albanians, Turks, said Dehran Muratov, a journalist and civil rights activist during his Morning Briefing.
We have progress. It is visible. One of our projects and commitments are the battles against hybrid threats and false news, misinformation and hate speech. During the Eurovision song contest there was a status which said “the little gypsy girl that got married for Belgium – grew up”, implying to the presenter from Belgium which presented the results, hinting to an unfortunate event and gives the perception that every Roma girl gets married at the age of 12, 13, 15 years. But what is a statistic is the fact that many young Roma women have high education, unlike the men, but that is not presented and said in the media. If we want to be one step away from Europe and if we truly want to be a part of Europe and to be citizens of Europe, we have to start abandoning that concept of favoring ethnicity and nationalism, and instead of that to return and once again see the meaning of respecting cultural differences and respect the abilities of the people. The work of certain human being should be a priority, and after that the ethnicity. That is why I say, maybe I am one of the rare people which was never asked about his ethnicity, says Muratov.
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