WORLD PLATFORM FOR
DALE FARM TRAVELLERS
By Jon Austin, political reporter,
The ECHO, 16 May 2008

A Crays Hill Traveller today flies to Luxemburg to speak
at an international conference on minority rights.

Richard Sheridan, spokesman for Dale Farm, and president
of the Gypsy Council, is one of 11 speakers at the conference
in the Hilton Hotel tomorrow.

Organised by the EU Russian Speaking Alliance , which promotes
rights for Russian-speaking and other minorities, the event includes
speeches by MEPs and MPs from the union.

Dale Farm is involved because many of its community still speak
a pre-celtic language called Gammon.

Mr Sheridan said: "Following our recent legal victory a lot more
people have heard of Dale Farm. We have friends around Europe
we didn't even know about."

Meanwhile, Jovan Damjanovic, one of two Roma MPs in the
Serbian Parliament, will visit Dale Farm and meet with British
MPs in Westminster .

He e-mailed Mr Sheridan saying: "I believe this is a brutal kind
of behaviour and great discrimination against travellers.
"I believe we could raise conscience and animate highest political
levels."

In June, as part of a national Gypsy month, people from Roma
Europe's oldest Romani settlement - Sulukule in Istanbul , Turkey ,
established 800 years ago, and already partly destroyed to make way
for development - visit Dale Farm.

They will discuss a proposed twinning with Dale Farm.
This summer, Travellers from Crays Hill, who journey widely
in Europe, will meet fellow Gypsies in Spain , Italy and Germany ,
to spread word of their continuing eviction battle.

In October, Mr Sheridan will join Gypsy Council delegates
at the seventh World Romani Congress in Croatia , to put forward
a plan of resistance to evictions where Roma and travellers are most
in need of legal homes