Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada, said that condition of Roma in Europe had most of the signs of apartheid and everyone involved was explicitly aware of it. It was now time for Europe to do something concrete and real for Roma upliftment and for Mandela and Tutu to work on another apartheid outside their country.

Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged various religious leaders and organisations of Europe to openly embrace and bless the Roma cause as religion told us to raise the voice for the helpless. It was a sin to watch the Roma suffer day after day for the last about 1200 years and not do anything about it.

Rajan Zed pointed out that it was shocking to see how inhumanely Europe was treating its about 15 million Roma brothers-sisters. It was clearly reprehensible, hazardous and immoral and a blatant failure of Europe to meet its international obligations. When it came to Roma, Europe frequently failed to implement its own laws distinctly mentioned in its own books.

Zed further said that alarming condition of Roma people was a social blight for Europe and the rest of the world as they reportedly regularly faced social exclusion, racism, substandard education, hostility, joblessness, rampant illness, inadequate housing, lower life expectancy, unrest, living on desperate margins, language barriers, stereotypes, mistrust, rights violations, discrimination, marginalisation, appalling living conditions, prejudice, human rights abuse, racist slogans on Internet, etc.

Besides the absence of any serious efforts at their inclusion, Roma were being used as punching bag and blamed for the social ills of Europe and many politicians even exploited segregation to their political advantage. European neglect was trapping Roma in cycles of persecution and poverty. Roma issue should be one of the highest priorities of human rights agenda of Europe and world, thus reversing the history of persecution, Rajan Zed stressed.