"If more Romany leave, we could pull down their housing" in a decrepit area of town, she said. In Ostrava, an eastern Czech town where many Gypsies now live, Mayor Liana Janackova said she wants to help them buy plane tickets so they would leave.
#George kubes immigration lawyer tv#
In the Nova TV documentary, the tension between Czech and Gypsy residents is clear. Employment, even restaurant service, is denied them in some areas, and they are frequently the target of beatings and violence that some courts are reluctant to punish. Persecuted and killed by the Nazis in World War II, they still suffer widespread discrimination. A nomadic people who originated in India and are currently scattered in pockets throughout Europe, the Gypsies have long been at the bottom of the continent's social and economic scale. It is a truth, however, that varies with perspective. "What we've been attempting to do here is bring some truth to the matter." That's the message we're trying to get across," said Terrance Mooney, Canada's acting charge d'affaires in Prague. "Nobody is waiting for them with open arms. The mission, rather, was to remind potential immigrants that it's hard to find a job if you don't speak English or French, that housing is expensive and hard to acquire and that no one will greet you at the airport with a welfare check. list of national economic and social development. The envoy was not, as Canadian diplomats often do, spreading the gospel that Canada heads the 1997 U.N. "Whole towns are eyeing this situation."Ĭoncerned that he may be right, Canada took the unusual step of sending a delegate from its embassy in Prague to conduct television interviews and speak with Gypsy groups. "The flood has not even started yet," Kubes said. In an interview in Toronto last week, Slovak-born lawyer George Kubes, who was featured on the documentary and is representing several hundred of the new arrivals, said he thinks the migration has just begun. Gypsies have been arriving steadily in Canada at least since last year, after the country lifted its visa requirement for Czech travelers. Nova reporter Josef Klima, in an interview in Prague, acknowledged that the documentary erred on the positive side in portraying Canada and excluded comments from some Gypsies who said their main reason for emigrating was Canada's reputation for rich social programs not the type of persecution in the Czech Republic that would qualify them as refugees. Here, you will live like kings, like the Canadians." "There you will be hungry and pushed aside. "All you Gypsies, if you have money, jump on a plane and come over," said a woman identified on the Nova TV show as Margit Bangova, surrounded by children and speaking Czech. 7, that portrayed Canada as a promised land of spacious housing, plentiful welfare, jobs for the asking and trips to Niagara Falls. It also has forced Canadian immigration officials to puzzle through a gathering refugee wave apparently started by word of mouth but stoked by a Czech television documentary, aired Aug. The numbers are still small, particularly for Canada, a country that accepts approximately 30,000 refugees among 200,000 annual immigrants.īut the number of Gypsies has still been enough to fill Toronto homeless shelters and force local social service agencies to house them in suburban hotels. that will understand our problem so we can start a new life."īonomova arrived in Toronto last May with her daughter and other relatives as part of a surge of Gypsy immigration that has taken Canadian officials by surprise and embarrassed the Czech Republic's emerging democracy.Ībout 550 Gypsies have arrived in Canada this year, claiming status as refugees from racial persecution in the Czech Republic. The Czech police "don't react until the skins beat us up. "I am very hopeful that the Canadian police don't react the way the Czech police react," Bonomova, 28, said through an interpreter.
In Prague, said the former university student, police would have watched from the sidelines until the skinheads administered their ritual round of kicks and punches. They positioned themselves between the Gypsies and the skinheads and stayed until the possibility of trouble eased. To her surprise and relief, the police arrived within minutes.
She said the reminder of her homeland, which she and others left to avoid beatings and harassment by such neo-Nazi groups, was both eerie and in conflict with the peaceful image of Canada that has taken root among the Romany people, as the Gypsies refer to themselves.īut what happened next, she said, explains why so many of her people have left their homes for Toronto. Karolina Bonomova was frightened when she heard that a gang of Canadian skinheads had gathered outside the Lido Hotel near Toronto, temporary home to some of the hundreds of Gypsies who have fled the Czech Republic for Canada in recent months.
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