News

International experts: Friendly approach from teachers toward families essential to successful inclusive education

18.3.2016 18:17 International experts who presented at the recent "School for All" conference in the Czech Republic described several factors key to the success of educating children living with disabilities together with other children. Those factors include collaborating with families, a friendly approach from teachers, the involvement of other experts, emphasis on the progress of each pupil, and the societal perception that the inclusive model of education is the correct way forward.  full story

Czech real estate agency fined for refusing to lease to Roma

18.3.2016 14:51 The Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce - ČOI) has fined a real estate agent in Brno CZK 20 000 (EUR 740) for discriminating against Romani people interested in leasing housing through them. During a recorded telephone inquiry about an apartment for lease, the broker told the prospective tenants that the building owners did not want Romani people living there.  full story

Hungarian teachers take to the streets seeking integration of Roma and apology from PM

17.3.2016 22:26 On 15 March, the biggest state holiday in Hungary, tens of thousands of teachers took to the streets in Budapest. They have been expressing their disagreement more and more resolutely with the events of recent months and their growing dissatisfaction with the Hungarian Government's education policy.  full story

Czech Republic: Two-day conference on inclusive education underway

17.3.2016 19:17 On Wednesday and Thursday 16-17 2016 March the "School for All" (Škola pro všechny) conference on inclusive education took place at Impact Hub Praha in the Czech capital. The aim of the conference was to discuss how an inclusive approach can interconnect various areas of education and transform the conception of the school environment.  full story

Czech right-wing radicals found guilty of inciting hatred of Jewish people, will appeal

16.3.2016 23:47 The chair of the ultra-right National Democracy party, Adam B. Bartoš, and his fellow party member Ladislav Zemánek are guilty of making anti-Jewish statements at the grave of Anežka Hrůzová in the Czech town of Polná. Judge Tereza Jedličková of Jihlava has handed down the verdict, which has yet to take effect.  full story

Slovakia: Anti-fascists ask Prosecutor-General to dissolve ultra-right party

16.3.2016 22:29 The organizers of the anti-fascist march in the center of Bratislava on 7 March against the ultra-right party called "Kotleba - People's Party Our Slovakia" (LSNS), which was attended by as many as 3 000 people after the party scored victories in the Parliamentary elections, are now calling for the LSNS to be dissolved. They have delivered a letter to Jaromír Čižnár, the Prosecutor-General of the Slovak Republic, asking him to take advantage of his powers and file a motion with the Slovak Supreme Court for Kotleba's party to be dissolved.  full story

Czech NGO report finds Muslims and Roma most frequent victims of hate violence

16.3.2016 18:16 A total of 86 cases of hate violence in the Czech Republic were recorded during the year 2014 by the In IUSTITIA organization, which aids the victims of such crimes. The incidents most frequently happened because of the victims' actual or perceived ethnicity, nationality, or religious faith.  full story

Slovak Regional Governor cancels theater production he doesn't like

16.3.2016 14:55 The ultra-right Governor of the Banska Bystrica Region, Marián Kotleba, has ordered the early closure of a theatrical production that he does not like, allegedly because it uses indecent expressions. News server Sme.sk reported that Kotleba's office had commissioned the play for performance at a teacher appreciation celebration in the town of Brezno.  full story

Slovak Police investigating suspicions of vote-buying in Romani settlements

15.3.2016 17:49 Police in Slovakia are investigating whether vote-buying has occurred in two Romani settlements in eastern Slovakia, where two lesser-known candidates for the governing party Směr-Sociální Demokracie (Direction-Social Democracy - Směr-SD), Peter Chudík and Stanislav Kubánek, won many more preferential votes than Slovak PM Robert Fico, the party's chair and most popular politician. Parliamentary elections were held in Slovakia more than a week ago.  full story

Czech Republic: Museum of Romani Culture holds commemorative ceremony on anniversary of genocide of Bohemian and Moravian Roma

14.3.2016 19:48 A commemorative ceremony marking the first mass transport of Romani men, women and children from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the Auschwitz concentration camp was held last week in Brno. The trains to Auschwitz set out on 7 March 1943 from the local municipally-run animal slaughterhouses.  full story

videoVideo footage shows recently-elected Slovak MP attacking Arab family including children last year

14.3.2016 18:41 Milan Mazurek (age 22) is a violent racist who will be seated in the Slovak Parliament on behalf of Marian Kotleba's fascist party, the People's Party Our Slovakia (Lidová strana Naše Slovensko - LSNS), as was documented last year when he vulgarly shouted at an Arab family with children who were being protected by police officers when extremists began throwing rocks at them during an anti-immigrant demonstration in Bratislava. Mazurek will be seated instead of the originally-elected LSNS candidate, who has had to give up his Parliamentary seat because he is being prosecuted for having assaulted a dark-skinned foreign national in 2014.  full story

Czech Republic: 1 200 local Holocaust victims commemorated in Tábor

14.3.2016 18:07 A commemorative ceremony today in the South Bohemian town of Tábor honored the approximately 1 200 people from the area who did not survive the Holocaust during the Second World War. The event, called REMEMBER! (PAMATUJ!) was held at the Church of Saint Philip and Jacob and at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Tábor, Jakub Smrčka of the Hadasa Tábor civic association, which organized the event, told the Czech News Agency.  full story

Czech Interior Ministry appealing municipal decision on gallows at anti-refugee hate demonstration

13.3.2016 19:07 The Czech Interior Ministry is appealing a municipal decision finding that those who brought mock-ups of gallows to a demonstration last year did not commit any wrongdoing. Prague City Hall will now be addressing the dispute.  full story

Germany: Neo-Nazis and populists march in Berlin waving fake Third Reich flags and those of Russia

13.3.2016 0:46 Almost 3 000 right-wing extremists and populists marched through the center of Berlin today to express their disagreement with the German Government's migration policy and more than 1 000 people turned out to counter-protest them. Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reports that smaller clashes occurred with police when approximately 200 people attempted to blockade the extremists' march.  full story

UK: It is a crime to curse someone for being English

12.3.2016 20:52 Allusions to someone's origin or religion can be considered racist in Great Britain. A court in the town of Hull has recently found a man guilty for using the term "English" to insult a traffic warden during an argument over a parking ticket.  full story

Czech activists file report of suspected crime after officials fail to produce permit used as pretext for denying them access to facility

11.3.2016 23:29 Activists running the Autonomous Social Center Klinika in the Žižkov quarter of Prague 3 say they have filed a report of a suspected crime with the police over the fact that the Prague 3 Building Works Authority claimed to them and to the owner of the facility where their center has been operating that because the building had been issued a permit for a different use, the continued operation of the center there was illegal. Now it turns out there is no record of such a use permit.  full story

Austria: Arson attacks against Romani families from Romania

11.3.2016 20:38 Unidentified perpetrators set fire to the tents of Romani families from Romania in the Upper Austrian city of Linz at the beginning of March. Fortunately, no one was injured in that incident.  full story

UN Committee tells Czech Republic: Compensate victims of forced sterilization and punish those responsible

11.3.2016 17:49 For the purpose of improving the position of women in the Czech Republic, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued its Concluding Observations to the Czech Republic on 7 March, based on the Czech Government's Sixth Periodic Report to the Committee on upholding the UN Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination against Women. A delegation from the Czech Republic defended that report before the Committee in Geneva on 23 February.  full story

Czech Police say they did not make a mistake when they failed to act against Nazi chants at public gathering

10.3.2016 20:52 The Czech Police did not make a mistake when they did not intervene against supporters of Czech President Miloš Zeman who chanted the slogans "Nothing but the nation" and "Pure race" last year on 17 November during a demonstration in Prague. Ivana Nguyenová, spokesperson for the Czech Police Presidium, has given that answer in response to a question posed by the Czech News Agency.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court receives motion to abolish inclusion in amendment to Schools Act

10.3.2016 18:03 The Czech Constitutional Court has received a proposal for the abolition of the planned inclusion that has been anchored in an amendment to the Schools Act adopted last year. As of 1 September this year, children with mild mental disability are to be gradually included into the classes of mainstream primary schools and to have special conditions for their instruction provided there for their education.  full story