EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 14

Aug/Sept 1998


100,000 - 200,000 SERIOUSLY ADDICTED
Government estimates show that there are between one hundred and two hundred thousand seriously addicted drug mis-users in this country, and many of these do not look for or cannot currently get access to effective treatment for their problems. Edges magazine has first hand experience of the socially excluded drug users who are a problem to the society in which they live. We congratulate the Government on its desire to help drug mis-users towards a more positive lifestyle, linking with employment, housing and education services.

Asylum
Seekers Grow


Asylum seeker's applications to Great Britain rose by almost 4,500 last year. This is one of the largest rises in the whole of the EU. About 35% of all applicants were from Asia and 30% from Africa and Europe.
More than 80% of Asylum seekers are refused
GYPSIES PERSECUTED
Since the break up of Czechoslavakia in 1993 about 100,000 Romanies are living in Czech but they are regarded as Slovak. This group of people are living on the fringes of Czech cities. They are exposed to attackes from skinheads and thousands are fleeing to Canada and Britain for refuge. In certain areas the authorities are buildinf 12 feet high walls around decaying apartment buildings in Usti and Pilsen, walls have been built around apartment buildings, which house 39 Gypsy families. Dimitrina Petrovia, the executive director of the European Roma Right's Centre in Budapest states the following. "This is pure racist segregation and it is totally unacceptable in a civilised society."

A television documentary last year about life in Canada prompted 600 gypsies to set off for North America; several hundred made their way to Britain


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