Czech Republic

Czech-language Facebook page slanders Romani organizations as anti-Islam

Prague, 13.1.2015 17:12, (ROMEA) A recently-created Czech-language Facebook page has been created by anonymous administrators who are slandering Romani initiatives. The name of the page is "Roma against Islam" (Romové proti islámu).  full story

Czech Human Rights Minister says President Zeman's remarks about ghettos too simplistic

Prague, 13.1.2015 16:08, (ROMEA) The first meeting of 2015 between Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier and the press was dominated by topics concerning Romani people and the relationship of the majority society towards them. The minister answered questions from news server Romea.cz, the RESPEKT weekly, the Deník franchise of daily papers and the Prima television station.  full story

Czech Republic: Girls invent story of assault by Roma, media must retract claims

Litvínov, 12.1.2015 17:50, (ROMEA) The infamous "journalist" Jan Vraný, who is behind the E-mostecko local online news server, has attempted to incite his readers against Romani people once more. However, he has only partially succeeded this time.  full story

Czech religious organizations call on public to resist radicalism

Prague, 10.1.2015 23:02, (ROMEA) The chair of the Czech Bishop's Conference, Dominik Duka, the chair of the Ecumenical Council of Churches, Daniel Fakfr, and the chair of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic, Petr Papoušek, jointly called on the public today not to succumb to radicalism as a result of the anger they might feel over the Islamist terrorists in France. "It is still necessary to insist on the basic principles of an open society. We must primarily insist on freedom of speech, on human rights, and on mutual respect between cultures and religions, as well as on seeking the road of common coexistence," the religious leaders say in a statement made available to the Czech News Agency.  full story

Commentary: Czech anger and the Roma

Prague, 10.1.2015 21:34, (ROMEA) The most recent survey of Czech public opinion and trust in political institutions shows falling voter preferences for the ultra-right DSSS party, confirming the good feeling shared by many people, including this author, that our society is rebounding after hitting rock bottom. However, that is no reason to be rocked into complacency.  full story

Czech director of documentary about quintuplets: There is truth on both sides

Prague, 9.1.2015 22:19, (ROMEA) "I believe there is some truth on each side here and that this is just only about communication," said Alena Derzsiová, the director of a 13-part documentary series about the first year in the life of the Czech Republic's first-ever quintuplets, when asked about the dispute that has arisen between their patron, Klára Vítková-Rulíková, and the quintuplets' mother, Alexandra Kiňová. Speaking this morning on Czech Television's Studio 6 broadcast, Derzsiová said the recent interview given by Vítková-Rulíková to news server Onadnes.cz was unfortunate at the very least.  full story

Czech Republic: Roma respond to accusations of food waste

Czech Republic, 9.1.2015 20:49, (ROMEA) News server Romea.cz has reached out to our colleagues and readers for their response to the recent remarks made by Ms Klára Vítková-Rulíková regarding the wasting of food by the family of the quintuplets and indirectly by Romani families in general. We asked people how their families handle food, whether it is a habit not to eat leftovers, and what they think of this all.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court postpones repeat elections in Brno municipality

Brno, 9.1.2015 19:43, (ROMEA) On Thursday, 8 January, the Czech Constitutional Court (Ústavní soud- ÚS) halted preparations for a repeat of the local elections in the Brno-sever Municipal Department until it reaches a decision on complaints filed by the Municipal Department and Mayor Rostislav Hakl (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD). The Regional Court in Brno cancelled the results of last year's elections over vote-buying and Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec then announced new elections for 14 March.  full story

Czech Republic: Muslim representative touts conspiracy theories about the murders in Paris

Prague, 9.1.2015 18:07, (ROMEA) Mohammed Abbas, the director of the Muslim Union in the Czech Republic, has given media appearances in which he has doubted whether Islamists were responsible for several high-profile terrorist attacks. Speaking in an interview with Daniela Drtinová on the internet television station DVTV and then on yesterday's episode of Czech Television's "Hyde Park" program, Abbas said the 9/11 attack on New York could have been committed by the U.S. Government; that since no one had ever found the terrorists who committed murder on a London bus it could not be proven that they were Muslim; and that now in Paris it is far from certain that it was actually Muslims who committed these attacks and that a secret service game could well be behind it all.  full story

Czech Social Affairs Ministry: Quintuplets' parents deserve support

Prague, 8.1.2015 19:57, (ROMEA) The Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry has issued a press release in response to remarks made by Klára Vítková-Rulíková in an interview with the online news server iDNES.cz on 5 January 2015, including her interpretation of the alleged opinions of some ministry staffers about the first quintuplets born in the Czech Republic. According to the press spokesperson for the ministry, those remarks reflected the personal opinions of Ms Vítková-Rulíková alone and were not in accordance in any way with the ministry's position.  full story

Czech cities honor French shooting victims, freedom of speech

Prague, 8.1.2015 17:25, (ROMEA) Today in front of the French Embassy, people in Prague will be able to express their solidarity with the victims of Wednesday's shooting at the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, during which 12 people perished. The embassy has announced that the French community in the Czech Republic is convening the assembly.  full story

Miroslav Kováč: Let's be better parents in 2015

Prague, 8.1.2015 0:26, (ROMEA) The year 2014 was, from my perspective, a test for the "maturity" of Romani people in the Czech Republic, their ability to adapt to today's conditions and take advantage of the options offered by democracy to improve their position. A quarter of a century is enough time for us to start drawing on those experiences.  full story

Czech Police charge five with support for suppression of human rights over 1 May 2014 march

Ústí nad Labem, 7.1.2015 22:34, (ROMEA) Police have charged five persons who participated in last year's 1 May march in Ústí nad Labem with showing sympathy for a movement to suppress human rights and freedoms. The people were wearing banned symbols.  full story

Czech publicity about family of Romani quintuplets crosses the line

Prague, 7.1.2015 21:53, (ROMEA) Klára Vítková-Rulíková has become a celebrity. She became one by supporting the first quintuplets ever born in the Czech Republic and their family.  full story

Czech news server Protiproud claims that all Romani children are retarded

Prague, 7.1.2015 20:09, (ROMEA) The year 2015 has begun in the Czech Republic in one of the worst possible ways: With an hysterical, xenophobic campaign against Muslims and Romani people. Czech MP Tomio Okamura unleashed the hateful whirlwind of opinions with his "war on kebabs" and other quasi-fascist opinions have begun swarming like wasps.  full story

Commentary: Does Okamura have a future?

Prague, 6.1.2015 21:27, (ROMEA) There would be no point in returning to the hateful and stupid remarks by Tomio Okamura about Muslims and no point in covering them at all if a basic question were not hanging in the air: Does this indicate the future of our public discourse and politics? Unfortunately, such a future cannot be ruled out.  full story

Czech MP calls for harassment of Muslims

Prague, 6.1.2015 20:30, (ROMEA) Czech MP Tomio Okamura, the head of the "Dawn of Direct Democracy" (Úsvit) movement, has used online social networking to urge the public to harass Muslims in the country - for example, by "taking pigs for walks to relieve themselves" near mosques. Okamura told news server iDNES.cz that his call was not an incitement to intolerance and claimed to have consulted the text with lawyers before posting it.  full story

Czech media outlet reprints old, misleading information about Roma in UK

Prague, 6.1.2015 19:38, (ROMEA) News server Novinky.cz has published an article with the headline "French town doesn't want to bury Romani child who didn't pay taxes" that includes information more than a year old about the situation in the suburb of Sheffield in England. As in its previous reporting, the news server's current reporting is silent as to the results of a police investigation into the matter, which means and the information it has now (re)published is extremely misleading.  full story

Czech SocDems get new leadership in region to address local coalition with extremists

Teplice, 5.1.2015 21:27, (ROMEA) The new chair of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) in the Ústí Region is the Vice-Mayor of Štětí (Litoměřice district), Miroslav Andrt. He is replacing Radek Scherfer of Chomutov, who led the party in the region for the last two years.  full story

Former Czech Foreign Minister does not believe his father was involved with the Lety camp

Prague, 2.1.2015 23:50, (ROMEA) Former Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg does not believe his father was involved at all in the establishment of the WWII-era camp at Lety by Písek. Radio Wave reports that he made the statement in response to claims by Paul Polansky that Schwarzenberg's father needed a cheap labor force in 1939 to clean up after a large blizzard and asked authorities to build a labor camp for that purpose.  full story