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Turkey's Roma Demand Homes Back

Correction April 20, 2009

We said, "Ever since [the Roma] began their odyssey from the Indian subcontinent two-and-a-half millennia ago, they’ve been feared and demonized." In fact, the Roma left India in the 11th century, about one millennium ago.

Romani musicians and a dancer. Peter Kenyon/NPR Enlarge image i

Romani musicians and a dancer celebrate World Roma Day in the threatened Roma neighborhood of Sulukule in Istanbul.

Peter Kenyon/NPR
Romani musicians and a dancer. Peter Kenyon/NPR

Romani musicians and a dancer celebrate World Roma Day in the threatened Roma neighborhood of Sulukule in Istanbul.

Peter Kenyon/NPR

In Istanbul, housing costs are high. People looked on with some anticipation as the municipality set out to rehabilitate a dangerous, rundown neighborhood inside the city's walls. But this urban renewal project is running into opposition from the neighborhood's residents, many of them Roma, the long-despised and disenfranchised minority also known as gypsies.

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