News

Separate, Unequal and Hazardous: The essential guide to Roma housing in Slovakia

22.1.2016 11:14 The Slovak Anti-Poverty Network argues that “housing and the protection of the right to housing is the weakest component of public policies”.1 There is a shortage of affordable accommodation; despite the growing number of applicants for social housing, public authorities rarely build new flats, and the number of flats available for rent is low and falls way short of the demand. Programs promoting social mix (more affluent social classes living with the poorer) are entirely missing.  full story

Almost 60 % of Czechs believe Romani children should be educated in mainstream classes

21.1.2016 19:38 More than half of all Czechs consider educating all children together to be the right way forward, according to a survey performed last year by the IPSOS agency for the Czech Professional Society for Inclusive Education (ČOSIV). A total of 57 % of respondents supported that opinion.  full story

Czech city of Brno wants to try groundbreaking project for homeless people by giving them apartments

20.1.2016 23:35 News server ECHO24.cz reports that yesterday Brno city councilors agreed to vote on a project called "Housing First" ("Bydlení především") through which social apartments are to be awarded to homeless people. The project has been created in collaboration with the Platform for Social Housing and the Czech Labor Ministry and must now be approved by the municipal council.  full story

Attila Balogh Hidvégi on serial murders in Hungary: Even brutal crimes did not spark Romani solidarity

19.1.2016 21:10 In connection with the recent verdict of the Hungarian Supreme Court upholding life sentences for three perpetrators of the serial murders of Romani people in Hungary and a 13-year sentence for their accomplice, news server Romea.cz is presenting in translation the following commentary by Romani journalist Attila Balogh Hidvégi who, according to his account, has followed this scandal intensively from the beginning and is completely, thoroughly familiar not just with the text of the indictment, but also with the events that occurred between the various hearings in the case. Hidvégi published his commentary on www.romnet.hu and we are reprinting it in translation here in a shortened form with their kind permission:  full story

Czech Education Minister rejects mayors' calls to delay inclusion

18.1.2016 17:16 Czech Education Minister Kateřina Valachová (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) is opposed to a proposal by the mayors of statutory cities to delay new inclusion measures in the schools which, according to the ministry's plan, are to take place on 1 September. Speaking at a meeting with the Association of Regional Authorities of the Czech Republic in Brno on Friday, she said the change has been discussed for 10 years and is no longer possible to postpone.  full story

Analysis: Hungarian court verdict upholding life sentences for racist murders has taken effect

17.1.2016 1:45 In Budapest on 12 January, Hungary's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from three men accused of having committed a series of racist attacks as members of an organized group from 2008-2009 in nine locations around the country resulting in six deaths and five seriously injured victims. Árpád Kiss, his brother István Kiss, and Zsolt Pető were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while their accomplice István Csontos will go to prison for 13 years.  full story

Czech Public Defender of Rights issues recommendations for primary school enrollments

15.1.2016 20:23 Today first-grade enrollments began in the Czech Republic. Children who will turn six during 2016 are those affected.  full story

videoHighest-paid Hungarian footballer of all time is Romani

14.1.2016 19:50 What has been suspected for several days has now been officially confirmed. Hungarian footballer Norbert Balogh will continue his career as a player in the highest Italian competition, the A Series, as a member of Palermo.  full story

Media image of Romani people in Slovakia: Generalizations and stereotypes

13.1.2016 23:06 The civic association Romano kher - Rómsky dom (Roma House) has produced an analysis of selected Slovak media outlets in collaboration with the Media Academy, focusing on those outlets that significantly contribute to creating the image of various minorities for the Slovak public. The survey monitored the period from the beginning of June to the end of October 2015.  full story

As Czech home for children improves facility, its Romani graduates can't get a lease

12.1.2016 21:50 Children living at the Prostějov children's home (Dětský domov) have a new outdoor playground. "We are doing our best to lead these children toward movement and sport, so the training playground became instantly popular. However, shortly after we installed the machinery, the real winter began. Now these young athletes have to wait for warmer weather," director Vladimír Brablec told the daily Prostějovský deník.  full story

Commentary by Karel Holomek: Special educators' lobby has tried to convince us for years that inclusion can't happen yet

12.1.2016 8:00 Among some of our educators the conviction predominates that inclusive education would be equivalent to the Czech schools planning to commit suicide. This has already become a kind of obsession, and some members of the special educators' lobby have been doing their best to convince us for at least 15 years that the time has not yet come for children with varying degrees of mental backwardness (mainly social backwardness) - or even for some children without any such backwardness - to be included in mainstream education.  full story

Czech Interior Minister Chovanec would like to restrict anonymity on the Internet

9.1.2016 20:21 According to Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec, the time has come to begin discussing various options on how to approach the Internet. "If I were to say now that I would like every Internet user to be identified, everyone would start throwing things at me. However, in my view, the time has come to debate how to move in that direction," yesterday's edition of the Czech daily Lidové noviny quoted him as saying.  full story

Some Czech schools institute online reservations for first-grade enrollment

8.1.2016 16:38 In mid-January the enrollment of children into first grade who will reach the age of six during 2016 will begin in the Czech Republic. The main criterion for a child's acceptance into first grade is, according to the Schools Act, whether the child lives in the school's so-called catchment area.  full story

Commentary by Petr Uhl: "The Jew Hilsner from Polná was unjustly convicted of the murder of the Christian, Hrůzová"

7.1.2016 23:03 I have borrowed the headline for this commentary from yesterday's news reports published by several Czech media outlets. The full headline was: "Leopold Hilsner, a resident of the Jewish ghetto in Polná, was unjustly convicted of the murder of the Christian, Hrůzová."  full story

Czech children give a record 3 873 Christmas gifts to their impoverished peers

6.1.2016 14:55 Diaconia of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren reports that through one of its projects a record 3 873 boxes of Christmas presents were distributed to children from socially vulnerable families or excluded localities in the Czech Republic this holiday season. The Christmas surprises, wrapped in shoe boxes, were prepared by other children from various locations around the country with the aid of their parents or teachers.  full story

Czech residential hotel with 200 tenants goes second day without power

5.1.2016 23:28 A residential hotel on Zelená Street in the Czech town of Děčín, which became a target of anti-Romani marches in the summer of 2014, has been without electricity since yesterday after several fuses blew. Around 200 occupants live in the building, a large portion of whom are children.  full story

Children from five Czech children's homes spend Christmas in the mountains

4.1.2016 17:28 Children from five children's homes in the Czech Republic found presents under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning this year thanks to the Duha Zámeček (Rainbow Manor) association's annual Rainbow Christmas in the mountains event. This year the children took an imaginary journey across the ocean and experienced an American Christmas with Santa Claus and turkey.  full story

Czech Human Rights Minister congratulates 30+ recipients of Roma Education Fund scholarships

15.12.2015 21:28 On Friday, 11 December, the annual gala to celebrate the awarding of scholarships to Romani college students took place in Prague. For the 2015/2016 academic year, 34 students received scholarships from the Budapest-based Roma Education Fund (REF).  full story

Czech Republic: Roma Spirit award goes to director of primary school that includes Roma and to Romea.cz co-founder

14.12.2015 22:28 The fifth annual Roma Spirit awards in the Czech Republic have been given in five regular categories and two special ones. The gala awards ceremony evening at the Prague Crossroads on Thursday, 10 December, International Human Rights Day, included performances by Antonín Gondolán, the band Terne Čhave and Natálie Bagárová.  full story

EU Justice Ministers call on Facebook to be stricter about removing hoaxes and threats

14.12.2015 20:20 The European Union's council of Member State Justice Ministers announced on 3 December that they are planning to jointly call on Facebook to be faster and stricter about removing hateful threats and hoaxes from the social networking site. "We are seriously debating this at the council of ministers. Here in the Czech Republic we are not very interesting [to Facebook] because we are a small market, and that is why we are doing our best to get Europe as a whole to agree to tell Facebook these matters need to be overseen," Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikán told news server Aktuálně.cz.  full story