News

AEDH calls on African and European leaders to put human rights at the center of migration policies

10.11.2015 23:14 The European Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AEDH) issued the following press release today:  full story

Papa bull? What the Pope said about Roma

10.11.2015 15:20 On Monday, October 26th, Pope Francis spoke to an audience of 7,000 members of the Roma and Sinti communities on the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul IV's meeting with Roma people in an informal settlement near Rome. While many were happy to receive his blessing, others were less impressed with what he had to say. In this guest blog, William Bila takes issue with the Pontiff’s message.  full story

Czech reporter's articles promote anti-Romani stereotypes through half-truths and manipulation

9.11.2015 21:49 The Czech daily Mladá fronta DNES and its Internet portal iDNES.cz have published a series of articles describing the development to date of a project in the town of Přerov spearheaded by local councilor Jiří Kohout, who has also been chair of the Public Affairs (VV) party since last year. The aim of the project was supposed to be (and still is) the employment of persons who have long been unemployed.  full story

Luxembourgian Foreign Minister says EU might fall apart over refugee crisis

9.11.2015 18:10 "The European Union can fall apart," Luxembourgian Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has warned in an interview for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA). "That could happen unbelievably quickly if isolation, not solidarity, becomes the rule for both extra- and intra-EU affairs."  full story

Professor Igor Lukeš: Lies in the public arena and the beginnings of Fascism

9.11.2015 5:57 With the permission of the author, news server Romea.cz has republished a blog written by Boston University Professor Igor Lukeš for news server Aktuálně.cz about the dissemination of hatred and lies. In the piece he draws attention to an extremist text against Islam and warns that "this is how Fascism began in the 20th century".  full story

Romani evictees seek compensation from town, Czech Supreme Court to review case

9.11.2015 4:38 The case of the Romani residents of Vsetín who were removed from its territory and relocated to villages outside of the Zlín Region nine years ago will be addressed by the Czech Supreme Court. The Romani plaintiffs believe the town violated their fundamental human rights by removing them.  full story

EU Justice Commissioner: Whoever says refugees don't deserve aid has never spoken with one

9.11.2015 3:18 The dissemination of hatred on the Internet, the refugee crisis and xenophobia in Czech society were the main topics of discussion between EU Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová and Czech MEP Stanislav Polčák on a recent episode Czech Television's "Václav Moravec's Qustions" program. "We do not have, not the Union, which is to say the Commission or the Parliament, and not the Member States - we ourselves do not have a solution to this in hand. The European Union is not a federation that could entrust the resolution of asylum policy from on high to the Member States of the Union. We must address this together, and I would really appeal for us to listen to each other, for the West to listen to the East, which is saying: 'We are concerned that we will have to... face the problem that the West has because it is a multicultural society'," the Commissioner said when asked to explain her view of the redistribution of refugees within the EU.  full story

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