News

Czech broadcast regulator: Prima TV news creates a negative image of migration

14.6.2016 7:00 On 7 June the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) in the Czech Republic issued its statement on the manipulation of news broadcasts alleged to have been done by the Prima television station (news server Romea.cz is publishing the statement below in full translation). Council chair Ivan Krejčí said that an analysis of the news reporting by Prima from 24 August to 13 September 2015 has revealed several contentious moments in specific broadcasts that indicate a tendency to create a negative media image of the issue of migration.  full story

Czech court says property owner must give squatter representative the keys to the Klinika building, for now

13.6.2016 8:17 The Office for Government Representation for Property Affairs (ÚZSVM) in the Czech Republic must wait until the criminal justice authorities and the courts have completed their work and issued a decision in the proceedings that are open before taking any more steps regarding the building in the Žižkov quarter of Prague that is currently occupied by activists from the Autonomous Social Center Klinika. According to interim measures imposed by the court, the ÚZSVM is entitled to change the locks on the building but must still give the keys to the person who is borrowing it until the court cases are resolved.  full story

Czech judge sanctioned for articles about migrants in bad taste

12.6.2016 12:04 A disciplinary panel of the Supreme Administrative Court (Nejvyšší správní soud - NSS) has officially cautioned a judge in Liberec, Czech Republic, Miloš Zbránek, for publishing two articles online. According to the panel, both of the pieces depicted migrants and the staff of nonprofit organizations in a grossly defamatory and non-objective way that crosses the line of decency and good taste.  full story

Germany: Roma at risk of being returned to the Balkans continue to protest

11.6.2016 8:27 "Solidarity with Romani people expelled from the memorial dedicated to the Sinti and Roma murdered during Nazism" - under that slogan a demonstration was held on 3 June on the Alexanderplatz in Berlin. The plan was to occupy the memorial to the Roma Holocaust in the Tiergarten near the neighborhood in the German capital that houses all of the government offices.  full story

Czech Republic: Anti-refugee hoax online after gas station attendants mistake Roma from Slovakia for "refugees"

10.6.2016 10:59 Employees of the Gold gas station near Mohelnice, Czech Republic are spreading a hoax about "refugees" online. When a bus full of Romani people heading back home to Slovakia after seasonal work harvesting hops in the Czech Republic stopped at their station, the attendants thought they were a group of "refugees".  full story

Austria: Arsonists set future asylum-seeker shelter on fire

9.6.2016 6:38 A wooden building in the north of Austria near the Czech and German borders that was supposed to become a shelter for asylum seekers was set on fire last week. According to representatives of the Red Cross, which owns the building, the fire was set by arsonists.  full story

Elena Gorolová on forced sterilizations: We seek compensation, nobody will ever restore our motherhood

8.6.2016 18:33 "The financial compensation we seek is not everything. You can't buy your own child, you can't acquire what you've lost - the option of motherhood," Elena Gorolová, who has been fighting for 11 years for compensation for women who have been improperly sterilized in the former Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic, told news server iDNES.cz last week.  full story

Czech Republic: TV Prima defends its anti-refugee newscasts by referring to a non-existent broadcast regulator "decision"

7.6.2016 9:03 The FTV Prima company issued a press release last week reacting to information published by news server Hlídacípes.org ("Watchdog") that the station management
instructed newsroom producers to present refugees as a crisis, problem, and threat. In its own main news broadcasts on the issue, Prima has told its viewers that the
station has been facing a campaign based on what they are calling a "manipulated" audio recording of the meeting where the instructions were given.  full story

European Commission agrees with social media companies on a common approach against online hate

5.6.2016 13:22 On 31 May the European Commission together with firms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube published a Code of Conduct to aid in the fight against the dissemination of hate speech through the Internet. According to the code, the firms will attempt to investigate whether content is objectionable within 24 hours of being warned about it.  full story

Czech Republic: TV Prima managers caught on tape telling reporters to "obey orders" about how to report on refugees

4.6.2016 12:34 On Monday, 30 May, the organization HlídacíPes.org ("Watchdog") published essential information about the fact that the management of TV Prima instructed its news
reporters last year to always present the topic of refugees as a crisis, problem and threat. The station has since responded, calling the information mere speculation.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani women forced to undergo sterilization tell their stories through theater

3.6.2016 18:00 A theatrical production called "Stories That (Never) Began" ("Příběhy, které (ne)začaly") telling the stories of several women who were forced to undergo sterilization will be created at the Cooltour multifunctional space in Ostrava next week. Women who have survived such abuses will create the performance under the direction of theatrical professionals.  full story

Soraya Post: Roma deportations increasing due to Syrian refugee crisis

2.6.2016 18:16 The deportation of Roma refugees in Europe is increasing because of the influx of Syrian refugees in Europe, according to Soraya Post, a Swedish member of the European Parliament.
 full story

Czech Republic: Broadcasting regulator suddenly lost its quorom when vote was taken on Prima's coverage of refugees

2.6.2016 10:35 At its session on 19 April, the Council on Radio and Television Broadcasting in the Czech Republic addressed an agenda item regarding a reportage broadcast about Christian refugees from Iraq. According to the complaint submitted, the Prima television station manipulated the information it broadcast.  full story

Czech Republic: Prima TV station told reporters to depict refugees as a risk and a threat or they would be fired

31.5.2016 13:31 The Czech NGO HlídacíPes.org ("Watchdog") has testimonies from several sources inside Prima TV stating that the television station's management gave producers there clear instructions during a meeting on 7 September 2015 about what angle to take toward the refugee "crisis" in its news reporting. The station's reporting on the issue took center stage this spring because of how it chose to report on the arrival of Christian refugees from Iraq to the Czech Republic.  full story

OSCE/ODIHR Event to Focus on Justice and Redress to Roma Victims of Forced Sterilization in the Czech Republic

30.5.2016 18:50 On Wednesday, 1 June, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) will convene an international conference on providing justice and compensation to Romani women who have been subjected to forced sterilization in the Czech Republic. Those attending will be representatives of the Czech Government, survivors of forced sterilization, civil society organizations including Roma community organizations, international experts, and representatives of the Council of Europe, the OSCE/ODIHR, and the United Nations.  full story

Russia: Romani residents of Tula rebel over gas supplies

29.5.2016 11:35 In one of the biggest Romani settlements in Russia a mass battle took place several weeks ago between local residents and police. The cause was the efforts of gas technicians to cut the Romani residents off from a gas pipe they had illegally been tapping.  full story

Czech Interior Minister suing City of Prague over opinion on gallows at demonstration

29.5.2016 10:52 The Office of the Municipal Department of Prague 1 did not make an error when it failed to assess the presence of a mock-up of a gallows during a demonstration against migration last year as constituting a misdemeanor, according to Prague City Hall, which has now reviewed the appeal of that Prague 1 decision filed by Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD), who says he will now file an administrative lawsuit over City Hall's decision. Chovanec says he believes threatening people with a gallows in public must not be allowed to be considered legal.  full story

Czech Republic: Another bomb threat against the Klinka Social Center, police search building without evacuating it

29.5.2016 10:35 On 27 May an anonymous e-mailer threatened to detonate a bomb at the Klinika Autonomous Social Center in the Žižkov quarter of Prague for the third time in seven days. Klinika activists reported the threat on their Facebook profile.  full story

Germany: Romani refugees occupy Berlin memorial to Roma murdered during Nazism, police intervene

29.5.2016 9:55 Last Sunday afternoon approximately 100 people occupied Berlin's memorial to the Romani and Sinti people who were murdered by the Nazis. The protest was held under the slogan "We Are Here".  full story

Cyprus: Orthodox Church leader welcomes election of neo-Nazi MPs

28.5.2016 10:21 The leader of the Cypriot Orthodox Church, Archbishop Chrysostomos, has expressed satisfaction over the fact that neo-Nazis from the "National-People's Front" (ELAM) party made it into Parliament for the first time ever after Sunday's elections. Chrysostomos supports the deep conservatism of the Orthodox Church, which takes a hard line against the secularizing efforts of modern society and supports hate speech against minorities such as the LGBT community.  full story