News

Commentary: Czech conference of Islamophobes moved from the Senate to a hotel

9.11.2015 0:11 This was the appropriate place: The Hotel Svornost in Dolní Počernice. The sponsors were also appropriate, with costs being covered by the clubs of senators from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, the North Bohemians (Severočechy) and the "Citizens' Rights Party" (Strana práv občanů - SPO).  full story

Artist wakes Europe's conscience with a minute of silence symbolizing deafness to the cause of refugees

8.11.2015 20:56 Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that when the news spread at the end of October that another 11 children had drowned attempting to reach Greece, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch suddenly exploded: "Fuck the politicians," the otherwise meticulously cultivated actor told the upper classes of the theater-going public in London after a performance of "Hamlet". He followed that with an urgent intercession on behalf of the thousands of refugees who are disembarking daily on the beaches of Europe.  full story

Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry plans financing of social housing as discussion of new law proceeds

8.11.2015 1:22 The Czech Labor Ministry is counting on a big portion of the money now used for housing benefits being transferred in the future into the financing of the country's social housing system. The money should be transferred to municipalities.  full story

Czech sociologists: Economic crisis contributed to rising exclusion, but society is mainly to blame

8.11.2015 0:26 Why has there been growth recently in the number of excluded localities and the number of people living in them? Czech MP Ivan Gabal, who is also a sociologist, and his colleague from the GAC company, Karel Čada, have contributed their analysis of the issue to the Czech daily Hospodářské noviny.  full story

Czech study shows most non-Romani parents seek schools with few or no Romani pupils

7.11.2015 21:55 Children from socially excluded areas who do not receive adequate support during preschool age are more at risk of school failure than their non-excluded peers. That is the finding of a study focused on the inclusion of preschool-aged Romani children presented on 5 November by the Open Society Fund Prague.  full story

Commentary: The Czech Interior Minister's "Potemkin village" of a refugee facility

6.11.2015 20:44 Czech Interior Minister Chovanec invited European diplomats to visit the detention facility for refugees at Bělá-Jezová yesterday. Journalists from Aktuálně.cz report that in preparation for the visit he removed most of the detainees from the facility and installed completely new benches and a children's playground on the grounds.  full story

Swedish Police force Romani migrants to vacate camp, PM says they are not the country's responsibility

6.11.2015 19:42 Swedish newspaper TheLocal.se reports in a detailed article that hundreds of Romani migrants in Sweden found themselves with nowhere to spend the night recently after police forced them to vacate a large "shantytown" in Malmö. Swedish PM Stefan Löftven announced the news and added that Sweden is not responsible for such people.  full story

Czech Republic: European ambassadors tour criticized refugee detention facility

6.11.2015 18:45 Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) gave ambassadors from other European countries a tour of the detention facility for refugees at Bělá pod Bezdězem in the Mladá Boleslav area. The camp has been criticized because of the allegedly poor approach it takes towards the asylum-seekers detained there and was to be toured yesterday by Czech Labor and Social Affairs Minister Michaela Marksová (ČSSD), who has child welfare as part of her portfolio.  full story

European Roma and Travellers Forum asks Pope to revise his rhetoric on Roma

6.11.2015 17:52 In a letter addressed to the Pope today, the President of the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF) Mr Gheorghe Raducanu welcomes the Catholic Church's recent initiatives to combat discrimination against Roma, Sinti and Travellers, but regrets that some of the Pope's well-intentioned remarks are likely to instead promote the sentiments that promote such discrimination by the majority population. “Asking the audience to be good Christians 'avoiding all that is not worthy of this name: lies, frauds, swindles, altercation', is excellent advice to be addressed to all Christians but, in the context of an audience with Roma and Sinti, this advice seems to be addressed exclusively to them," the letter notes.  full story

Czech Government approves proposals for solving housing problems in excluded localities, critics not satisfied

6.11.2015 4:48 On 19 October the Czech Government approved a report on the state of socially excluded localities in the Ústecký Region submitted by Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier that includes proposals for how to solve the problems of ghettos in the Czech Republic in general. The report reviews the situation in municipalities with socially excluded localities that have collaborated with the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion and includes motions, recommendations and brief proposals for addressing the problem areas of education, employment, housing, indebtedness, social services and social work.  full story

Czech court acquits activist who used removable paint on sidewalk in front of Parliament

4.11.2015 23:18 Today the Prague 1 District Court acquitted two activists who used removable paint to outline the figure of a man and write the name "Tomáš" on the sidewalk in front of the Czech lower house in July. Judge Dana Šindelářová said no crime had been committed and there had been no intention to commit property damage.  full story

German state of Bavaria prepares to sue federal government over alleged mishandling of the refugee crisis

4.11.2015 22:39 The German daily Tagesspiegel reports that the German state of Bavaria is preparing a Constitutional complaint against the German Government over the current influx of refugees into the country. The country's largest state is of the opinion that the federal government is not meeting its obligations during the refugee crisis by not attempting to restrict the arrival of immigrants to the country.  full story

Marek Szilvási: Czech Government should stop gambling with the country's reputation - the fight for compensation for forced sterilization is not over

4.11.2015 19:15 I remember being with the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) just a couple of months when I was invited to Ostrava to an informal meeting with the Group of Women Harmed by Coercive Sterilization, an informal collective of harmed self-advocating Romani women. The meeting was organised by the local Life Together NGO in early April 2012 to celebrate the fact that after years of local activism, lawsuits and advocacy struggles, the Government’s Council for Human Rights had finally recommended the Government develop a compensation scheme for involuntarily sterilized women. A month earlier, the Group, Life Together and the ERRC had sent an official letter welcoming this government commitment. I took an early morning train and after a half-day journey from Budapest to Ostrava, I was warmly welcomed by the Life Together staff and the Romani women activists, whom until then I knew only through phone calls and email correspondence. After shedding my water-soaked coat I entered the second room and was introduced to Monika Šimúnková, the Czech Government’s Human Rights Commissioner, and Kateřina Valachová, now the current Minister of Education, who was at that time working for the Ombudsman. The atmosphere was relaxed, almost festive, and I soon succumbed to it and started expecting this controversy soon to be over.  full story

Karel Holomek: We should approach migrants through a sober examination of the facts

4.11.2015 0:09 The most recent opinion I have come across in the broad, endless debate about the refugees and what to do with them comes from Roman Joch (Lidové noviny, 15 October). In his opinion piece, he has presented the horrifying vision of author Jean Raspail's novel The Camp of the Saints, in which European civilization is destroyed by hordes of refugees who take what they do not have away from those who are incapable of holding onto what is theirs because of some sort of chimerical kindness and limitless tolerance.  full story

Czech Human Rights Minister: Debt relief is a basic aspect of addressing social exclusion

3.11.2015 22:54 Combating social exclusion involves not just creating accessible social housing and schools that don't discriminate, but debt relief. Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier opened up this very sensitive topic during the "Partie" discussion program on the Prima television station yesterday.  full story

Slovakia: Roma build new homes with EU money

3.11.2015 22:08 The Office of the Slovak Government's Plenipotentiary for Romani Community Affairs allocated financing last year for three local administrations to build lower-standard small apartment buildings. That successful project can now continue thanks to a subsidy in the amount of EUR 70 million to be provided to Slovakia by the European Union for the purpose of building more such dwellings.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani local councilor to remain in custody on drugs charges

3.11.2015 19:04 Marcel Cichý, a local councilor in the Czech town of Trmice (Ústecký Region), has been charged with drug distribution and will remain in custody pending trial. The Ústecký Regional Court announced that decision today.  full story

Czech Republic: Proportion of Roma in children's homes increasing

3.11.2015 1:37 The proportion of Romani boys and girls in children's homes for children under three years of age has risen in recent years. While in 2010 one-fifth of the population of such nursery institutions was comprised of Romani children, at the end of last year one-third of the children in such institutions were Romani.  full story

Analysis: Did the Hungarian Justice Minister really warn that Roma could join jihadists in Syria?

2.11.2015 17:31 Brussels-based news server EU Observer reported recently that Hungarian Justice Minister László Trócsányi allegedly spoke at a recent conference in Brussels of the danger of the possible radicalization of Romani people, who could become the next jihadists in Syria. However, what precisely he said and what he meant is now the subject of ongoing discussion and speculation.  full story

Czech Republic: Ultra-right anti-immigrant protests blockaded by 98 opponents who are detained

2.11.2015 16:01 News server iDNES.cz reports that several hundred opponents of immigration who are also supporters of the right-wing extremist Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS) gathered in Olomouc on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the reception of refugees and in favor of the Czech Republic leaving the European Union. A group of approximately 100 people protested against that assembly and expressed their support for receiving refugees.  full story