News

Germany: Immigrants do not commit more crime than anybody else

20.6.2016 7:48 On 10 June the German newspaper Die Welt reported that Germany's Federal Crime Bureau (BKA) has published its data on immigrant perpetrators of crime for the first time ever. During the first quarter of 2016, 69 000 felonies in the country were committed by migrants.  full story

Austria: Ultra-right extremists assault university rector during lecture

19.6.2016 10:27 A lecture at a university in the southern Austrian town of Klagenfurt was disrupted on 10 June by approximately 10 adherents of the ultra-right who burst into the lecture hall shouting with megaphones. Rector Oliver Vitouch told the Austrian Press Agency that one of them proceeded to strike him in the belly.  full story

Russia: Mass demolition of homes in one of the biggest Romani settlements

18.6.2016 9:24 The situation in the municipality of Plechanovo, one of the biggest Romani settlements in Russia, where mass street fighting occurred several weeks ago between local residents and police over efforts by the gas utility to cut Romani residents off from the gas lines, has deteriorated further. Starting in the first week of June, the illegal constructions in which local Romani people are living have been demolished.  full story

UK: MP Cox, who opposed "Brexit" and supported refugee reception, has been murdered

17.6.2016 7:18 British Labour MP Jo Cox, who strove to see Britain remain in the European Union, has been murdered in her electoral district. Police quickly arrested the man suspected of committing the attack.  full story

When words fall on stony soil and hearts harden in the face of injustice: On coercive sterilisation and social theatre

16.6.2016 11:14 In Czechoslovakia coercive sterilisation policies primarily targeted groups that were considered a threat to the public health of society. Romani women were among these targeted groups, and over a period of almost thirty years, hundreds of Romani women were either sterilised without their knowledge, or unduly pressured by doctors and social workers to ‘consent’ to sterilisation. It was a bitter and cruel historical twist that Czechoslovakia launched its eugenic program focused on limiting the reproductive capacities of its ‘problematic’ groups in the early 1970s, just when Sweden finally chose to abolish its coercive sterilisation policies. Sweden had the unsavoury distinction of being the first country to introduce eugenic laws in the 1930s, even before Nazi Germany or fascist Italy. Only in 1993 did Czech-Slovak authorities abolish such abusive state policies, but in the absence of any new comprehensive policy framework, the practice mushroomed and continued until early 2000.  full story

Czech Republic: Another TV Prima insider comes forward, says producers want "only negative voices" from interviews on refugees

16.6.2016 7:33 The decision last year by the management of TV Prima to depict refugees as a threat had its specific impacts on the work of their reporters in the central newsroom and in the regions. "I can confirm that I actually, several times, received the instruction to film 'man-on-the-street' interviews with people about refugees and to use only the negative reactions. Or I was instructed during the stand-up to say that people do not want refugees in their community and are afraid of them, without anybody verifying beforehand that it was actually true," says a woman who contacted investigative news server HlídacíPes.org ("Watchdog") with her testimony after reading their series of articles on the issue.  full story

EU Member States may not punish migrants for illegal entry by imprisoning them

15.6.2016 6:18 Migrants who illegally cross the borders of most EU Member States in the Schengen zone may not be punished with imprisonment for so doing. The European Court of Justice has decided that instead of that punishment, the Member State concerned should take advantage of the so-called "Return Directive" to deport the migrant, according to the conditions of the directive, back to the country from which the migrant performed the illegal crossing.  full story

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