Reader feedback: It's a British thing

Re: An interpreter's tale about Roma migration, By Matt Reynolds, March 8 - 14, 2004, Vol 10, No 9

In the past few months there have been other stories in Slovak newspapers written by people that had gone out on assignments with British journalists that were similar to this one in The Slovak Spectator. One or two had enough clues in them so that you were able to find the story that eventually got published in the UK paper. It was remarkable how the flavour of it changed.

There were other EU countries that had Roma from Slovakia, and elsewhere, "abusing their hospitality", but none had posted immigration officers at the Prague airport to stop Roma from boarding planes bound for their country - just the UK. Czech TV made a very unscientific, but effective, test at one point. They sent two reporters on a legitimate assignment to the UK. They were identical for all practical purposes, same appearance, credentials, financial background, except one was Roma. Guess which one those officers at the airport prevented from leaving for the UK?

Mišo Minarovič

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