Czech Republic

Security lax at Czech trial of alleged ultra-right arsonists and others

Plzeň, 17.2.2015 1:08, (ROMEA) Aš, Hodonín, Praha, Sokolov and Trutnov: These are the names of the different places where the defendants in the first prosecution for racist violence to be investigated by the Organized Crime Detection Unit's Department of Extremism and Terrorism have come from. While this is the largest case of its kind ever to be solved and brought to trial, Czech media reporting on it has been very brief  full story

Czech Republic: Islamophobic demonstration greeted by counter-protest

Brno, 15.2.2015 0:03, (ROMEA) The Czech News Agency reports that about 600 people came to Moravské Square in Brno today to demonstrate against Islam. Advocates of religious freedom and tolerance convened their own assembly nearby, numbering about 200.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court backs activist in dispute with MP

Prague, 13.2.2015 22:00, (ROMEA) "The illegal behavior of MP Řápková has generated CZK 8 million of debt for the town of Chomutov so, to be honest, it is rather ridiculous for her to try to combat 'inadpatables' when she has proven so 'inadaptable' herself," said Daniel Hůle. The staffer with the NGO People in Need was commenting on a proposal brought by MP Lenka Kohoutová and MP Řápková to it legal for collections agencies to attach an individual's welfare benefits, which would leave the insolvent with only the legally-defined subsistence minimum as income.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani town councilor says housing, unemployment worry people the most

Chomutov, 13.2.2015 20:29, (ROMEA) "I am mainly concerned with improving relations between the majority society and Romani people, with helping people who want to work and are unable to, and with improving housing policy," says David Ištok. After the recently repeated elections he is now a member of the Chomutov town council after having been active in several nonprofit organizations and working as a crime prevention assistant to the Chomutov Municipal Police.  full story

Czech lower house removes controversial definition of disability and passes education amendment

Prague, 13.2.2015 19:23, (ROMEA) Today the Czech lower house came to a surprising agreement, voting 170:6 to remove a dubious section of a paragraph in an amendment to the Schools Act on pupils with special educational needs. News server Romea.cz has covered the dispute over the amendment here and here.  full story

Czech Republic: HateFree Zones combat rising intolerance

Prague, 13.2.2015 0:53, (ROMEA) Places that are open to all irrespective of their ethnicity or other group affiliation can become branded HateFree Zones. The branding is a new activity of the HateFree Culture campaign being run by the Human Rights Section of the Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation Jiří Dienstbier (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD).  full story

Czech Republic: Drop-in club moves and starts children's rights project

Brno, 13.2.2015 0:06, (ROMEA) The Pavlač drop-in club, which has been working in a socially excluded locality of Brno for 13 years, is re-opening after a year's hiatus at its new address, Vranovská 4. The club will provide social services to children and youth from the Brno city center and surrounding neighborhoods.  full story

Czech survey shows that young people have double standards about Roma

Prague, 11.2.2015 21:34, (ROMEA) A survey conducted by the MEDIAN agency for the HateFree Culture initiative, which is being implemented by the Human Rights Section of the Czech Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation, reports that more than half of young people surveyed in the Czech Republic believe that hatred on the Internet is so commonplace that there is no point in responding to it. The initiative is now set to establish in-person contact with people in regions throughout the country.  full story

Czech Republic: "Dawn of Direct Democracy" movement splinters

Prague, 11.2.2015 0:38, (ROMEA) Several Czech MPs and the executive of the "Dawn of Direct Democracy" (Úsvit) movement have agreed to establish a new political party. They want a new platform to be created for the defense of Czech national interests that will collaborate with the French ultra-right Front National, among others  full story

Czech NGO says legal provision could lead to overuse of the concept of "mild mental disability"

Prague, 10.2.2015 21:44, (ROMEA) Tomorrow, 11 February, the Czech Chamber of Deputies will undertake a third reading of an amendment to the Schools Act. If adopted, the amendment would introduce a system of support measures for pupils with special educational needs, a system that has been given a consistently positive reception by experts across the board.  full story

Czech nonprofits and parents sign open letter rejecting law's definition of mental disability

Prague, 10.2.2015 20:53, (ROMEA) Representatives of nonprofit organizations and members of the informal Parents for Inclusion (Rodiče za inkluzi) alliance sent an open letter on Friday, 6 February to Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka about an amendment to the Schools Act that is currently undergoing approval. The amendment is supposed to improve the education of children with special educational needs, but according to the letter, it also includes a dubious definition of mental disability that increases the risk that children now educated in mainstream schools might be reassigned to the "practical schools" for children with "mild mental disability" in future.  full story

Czech School Inspectorate says Romani enrollments in mainstream primary schools rising

Prague, 10.2.2015 19:53, (ROMEA) More and more Romani children in the Czech Republic are being educated according to the standard primary school program. Statistics produced recently by the Czech School Inspectorate indicate that in the current school year, compared to the 2013/2014 school year, the reduced curriculum for pupils with "mild mental disability" has reportedly been less frequently used.  full story

Czech ultra-right arsonists face extraordinary sentencing over attack on residential hotel in Aš

Prague, 10.2.2015 17:54, (ROMEA) Two right-wing extremists who began to testify in court yesterday before the Regional Court in Plzeň about a 2012 arson attack on a residential hotel in Aš could face extraordinary sentencing if convicted. Tomáš Kopecký (24) and Michal Poláček (34), according to police files, were members of the neo-Nazi racist organization Blood & Honour Division Bohemia and its militant daughter organization Combat 18 when they threw Molotov cocktails at a building occupied by families with children, most of them Romani, in February 2012.  full story

Czech Gov't Agency says funding for inclusive education already exists

Prague, 9.2.2015 20:12, (ROMEA) The Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion has released a statement explaining that the costs for educating children with special educational needs in mainstream education have already been calculated as part of the Government's Strategy to Combat Social Exclusion. The Czech lower house is currently reviewing an amendment to the Schools Act that is supposed to introduce many changes to primary education in the country.
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Karel Holomek: Who "discovered" the Romani camp at Lety?

Brno, 7.2.2015 0:53, (ROMEA) I was a direct witness to the events written about by Petr Zídek in last Saturday's edition of Lidové noviny (24 January 2015) in his article "A report on the discovery of the Romani camp at Lety by Písek" ("Zpráva o objevu romského tábora v Letech u Písku"). In particular, I was a witness to the participation of the American Paul Polansky, how he has framed the events concerned and how he evaluates his own role.  full story

Czech Republic: Juvenile gets 4.5 years for assaulting man helping accident victim

Prague, 5.2.2015 21:41, (ROMEA) Michal Mucha, who together with his brother Jan assaulted a man coming to the aid of the victim of a traffic accident before attacking yet another person at the scene will go to prison for 4.5 years. His sentence for bodily harm and rioting was reduced by the Prague High Court yesterday by six months.  full story

Czech Republic: Number of socially excluded localities growing

Prague, 5.2.2015 15:31, (ROMEA) In the Czech Republic the number of ghettos and the number of needy people living in them is gradually rising. During the past four years there have been no significant improvements to employment, housing or security in these impoverished localities and their surrounding neighborhoods.  full story

Will Czech documentary about Romani activist unite, or divide?

Prague, 4.2.2015 19:59, (ROMEA) Ivo Bystřičan's documentary film "Opre Roma" sparked passionate discussion before it was even aired. There is no doubt that Romani activist Ivana Čonková, the film's central focus, is a prominent figure who has recently drawn a great deal of attention.  full story

Czech Republic's strategic interest is in European stability and support for democracy

Prague, 4.2.2015 18:30, (ROMEA) The security and stability of the Euro-Atlantic area, coping with and preventing regional conflicts and ameliorating their repercussions, and strengthening the cohesion and effectiveness of the European Union and NATO are some of the strategic interests of the Czech Republic included in the country's updated security strategy for 2015. The material will be discussed by the Czech Government today and the Czech News Agency has seen a copy of it.  full story

Czech nonprofit recording studio to combat social exclusion of young Roma

Brno, 4.2.2015 0:05, (ROMEA) A former casino on Milada Horáková Street in Brno is becoming a place for the motivation and support of artistically gifted young Romani people. Young, engaged Roma are building a multimedia recording studio that will function as a nonprofit in collaboration with the NGO IQ Roma servis, the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University, and the Brno-střed Municipal Department.  full story