News

As politicians mark International Holocaust Remembrance day, Czech extremists deny it

28.1.2016 18:02 Yesterday, 27 January, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In 2005 the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed it as such, a motion supported by a total of 91 of its member states.  full story

EXCLUSIVE: Romani figure skater Ivan Righini, three-time Italian champion, competes for the European Championship

27.1.2016 19:59 The 2016 European Figure Skating Championships begin today in Bratislava, Slovakia. At 17:30 CET, Ivan Righini, a figure skater with Italian, Romani and Russian roots, will compete for Italy in the men's short program with the starting number of 28.  full story

Mensur Haliti on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day: A Way Forward from “Never Again”

27.1.2016 10:26, (ROMEA) January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day Today, humanity will pay tribute to the millions of people who were murdered in Europe under the Nazi regime.

Commemorations are necessary to understand the demons of human nature and to make us realize what we are “capable of”, and how “good people” can sometimes contribute to mass murders, surrendering their morals to the group in power.  full story

New Czech website focuses on the Romani Holocaust

26.1.2016 19:28 On Wednesday, 27 January, the world will honor the memory of the millions of victims of the Holocaust. On this occasion the In IUSTITIA public benefit corporation, the only group in the Czech Republic comprehensively dedicated to the issue of hate violence, is launching an educational website focused on the topic of the Romani Holocaust, sometimes referred to as the Porajmos.  full story

Slovakia: Three children burn to death in Romani settlement

25.1.2016 18:18 Three children died around in the early morning hours of Sunday in the Romani settlement in the municipality of Lomnička (Stará Ľubovňa district) in eastern Slovakia. A two-year-old boy, four-year-old boy and five-year-old girl tragically burned to death.  full story

Czech town of Kladno: 40 private residential hotels and no other alternative for the poor

23.1.2016 20:08 The shabby building has been wrapped in tape ever since it was condemned. Formerly an infamous residential hotel called the "Meat Factory" (Masokombinát), it is still standing in the Czech town of Kladno despite four-year-old plans by the town to either demolish or sell it.  full story

Czech Public Defender of Rights says 11 % of the population encounters discrimination

22.1.2016 22:48 The Office of the Public Defender of Rights issued a press release today reporting that discrimination is directly experienced by 11 % of the population of the Czech Republic, usually when seeking work or directly in the workplace. The most frequent problem is discrimination due to advanced age.  full story

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