by Luis Delgado

"The Roma have always a lacked access to power,” Savelina Danova of the European Roma Rights Center said. “ They have always been without a voice in domestic and international affairs."

The Roma are traditional Gypsies that have been persecuted and discriminated since their nomadic arrival in Europe. They have been banished from countries and denied citizenship in many places until this century. These factors have not allowed many Roma to obtain the powerful position needed to change policy.

“The nomadic lifestyle is certainly a reason for the hostility of the majority of the population, but not the only one," Danova said.

There are also religious reasons that stem back hundreds of years. Those reasons are the source of some of the hostility and past persecution the Roma have faced in most parts of Europe. There places that are worse than other in Italy for example the women Roma beg in the subway stations while some of the young walk by and spit on them. Most just clutch their purse or wallet.

"Roma rights have been violated everywhere you cannot speak of the best and worst countries in this regard,” Danova said.

One of the traditions that the Roma have is Fortune telling. Danova declined to comment on this aspect of the Roma culture. But this aspect is a major source of contention for religion.

Roma believe that they can foretell event and heal the past. The soothsayers are only female and they do not practice this belief on each other. They only tell non-Roma future. Part of this belief is the ability to place curses.

The truth is that Roma for the most part took on he faith of the area they settled.

"Roma have adopted various religions," Danova said. "There are for example Christian and Muslim. Roma tend to adopt the religion of where they live. There is no central religion for the Roma."

"The religious hate that Roma faced hundreds of years ago remain but only as a secondary form of animosity the primary hate is now secular and ethnic , but the roots lie in the tradition the leaders of the orthodox faiths saw as different from their own teachings."