Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 10:54:49 -0700
To: fishbreath@somewhere.net
From: ef
Subject: news from romania
i just talked to iren... the latest news.
janoska was at the playground with marci and saw a guy buying a bun at a stall and asked if he could get one too. i guess he was hungry. and for this, he was arrested by the militia - the police, over there - and locked up.
see, there is a new law, a law directed at streetchildren... of which there are many... homeless children, starving and living under benches, in alleys. so now they gather them up and lock them up. then there is a fine to pay - and of course, no one can pay that, if they have parents, the parents are also starving - and then, since the fine was not paid, they get shipped off to the countryside, i suppose to some sort of "children's home", an orphanage. you know, to get them out of sight.
so now janoska has been locked up for two days, and mihaly doesn't have the money to pay the fine. tomorrow, at my suggestion, he will go to the pro europa foundation, i kinda made friends with a director there, and i think he will be able to help. for one, janoska is not a streetchild, he has a home and parents, who whatever their faults, care about him. so it is a total scam to try to make them pay... for what? that he asked someone for a bun??
i have the proeuropa guy's email address, he is a young lawyer, kinda intense and nice. i will write him too, right away, after this. oh, and you can see their website, they are a human rights organization based in vasarhely. though the best horrorstories are in hungarian... you know, about lynchings of gypsies in the villages. here:
fuck. you know what i would do if i were there? i would organize a demonstration. right in front of city hall. i would organize a demonstration with all these families, all the mothers and fathers, and all the children. and all the fathers would be carrying signs that would say in nice big letters, give us work. our children are hungry. give us work.
at which point i would be arrested and and deported. and maybe even beaten up. just think of all the neat stuff i could write then, har.
when i was there, everyone said, don't think they are not watching you. they are watching you all the time, they said.
-e
HOME | CHILDREN | FAMILIES | | CONTACT