A chara, - James McKenna (November 3rd) asserts that there is no longer a repressive regime in Bucharest. This may well be true for members of the settled community in Romania, but for the Roma/gypsy population the situation has not changed.
Last year, when 47 Romanian Roma arrived here, Magill magazine sent a journalist to the village they had fled. The resulting article was a catalogue of horrors - houses burned down, regular attacks, ghettoes etc.
Romania is not exceptional in this behaviour. Almost all the eastern European countries treat their Roma alike: not only are they seen as second-class citizens, but when they suffer routine physical attacks from settled people, virtually no investigations are carried out, so arrests are seldom made.
If this does not constitute a repressive regime as far as the Roma are concerned, then what does? If Mr McKenna himself were living in this situation, would he think it was fine and dandy? Might it not cross his mind to leave home and try to make a better like for his family elsewhere? - Yours, etc.,
Sue Richardson, Belvedere Avenue, North Circular Road, Dublin 1.