Czech Republic

Czech Republic: Young adults inherit debt from day one

Most, 10.2.2014 17:39, (ROMEA) News server Peníze.cz has published an interview with Alena Zieglerová, who worked for many years as the head of the Labor Office in the Czech town of Most. She knows the Chanov housing estate, which has a large Romani population, and the problems of people "on the margins" of society firsthand.  full story

Czech town uses EU funds for police assistant to restrain unruly pupils in the schools

Sokolov, 7.2.2014 17:26, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that in the Czech town of Sokolov a new reinforcement to the municipal police has begun addressing truancy with troubled families and will even be sitting as an observer next week in classrooms where instruction is disrupted by undisciplined pupils. The police assistant mission is being started at the Primary School on Křižíkova Street, where most of the children (approximately 40) from a recently closed, so-called Romani primary school were reassigned a year and half ago.  full story

Czech Police looking for man who gave the Nazi salute in the Prague metro

Prague, 7.2.2014 0:00, (ROMEA) Police officers from a local station in the Vysočany quarter of Prague and detectives investigating extremism are working on the case of an aggressor who verbally assaulted his fellow passengers on the metro before giving the Nazi salute at the Kolbenova metro station. On Monday, 27 January at about 11:30 AM, the man reportedly shouted racial epithets at a tourist from France while riding in a metro car between the Vysočanská and Kolbenova stops.  full story

Czech media ignores trial of 2013's most serious racially-motivated attack

Teplice/Ústí nad Labem, 6.2.2014 21:47, (ROMEA) At the end of January, the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem reviewed last year's most serious case of racially-motivated violence (according to the indictment). During the celebration of the opening of the spa in Teplice, a local recidivist stabbed a man to death and seriously injured several others with a hunting knife.  full story

Museum of Roma Culture director: Today's anti-Roma sentiment recalls interwar society

Brno/Prague, 6.2.2014 0:25, (ROMEA) In the Czech Senate on 27 January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, speeches were made by Senate chair Milan Štěch, the vice-chair of the Chamber of Deputies MP Jaroslava Jermanová (ANO movement), Auschwitz survivor Luděk Eliáš, and the director of the Museum of Roma Culture, Jana Horváthová. News server Romea.cz brings you Ms Horváthová's speech in full translation below.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court rejects complaint by convicted Holocaust denier

Brno, 5.2.2014 2:09, (ROMEA) The Czech Constitutional Court has rejected a complaint filed with it by the Czech-Canadian author Vladimír Stwora, who has been convicted in the Czech Republic of using the internet to doubt the extent of the Holocaust. While the prisoner amnesty announced by former Czech President Václav Klaus had already cancelled the suspended sentence handed down against Stwora, he insisted on having his complaint against it heard by the court.  full story

Czech Republic: New law would mean thousands at risk of homelessness

Brno, 3.2.2014 17:31, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that more than 3 000 socially excluded people live in residential hotels throughout the Czech city of Brno. A forthcoming amendment would restrict residency in such facilities to the length of one year but does not address what would happen to those who have to move away after a year's time.  full story

Czech town refutes rumor it is privileging Romani residents

Most, 2.2.2014 21:44, (ROMEA) The town of Most has recently responded to a letter it received from someone identifying themselves as a pensioner claiming that young Romani passengers ride public transportation for free there and that the town also pays Romani people's taxi fares once a month. The town has refuted these rumors; please see the letter and the town's response below  full story

Czech court sentences two of the four brawlers in Duchcov incident

Duchcov/Teplice, 1.2.2014 22:59, (ROMEA) A court in Teplice issued its ruling on 28 January in the case of those involved in an illegal manhunt for the organizer of anti-Romani demonstrations in the town of Duchcov, a group of four who ended up assaulting two mistakenly identified men. The judge has sentenced two of the defendants to prison, put one on probation, and acquitted the fourth.  full story

Czech MEP candidate wants to ban immigration into the EU

Prague, 1.2.2014 4:08, (ROMEA) Klára Samková, a candidate for the European Parliament on the ticket of the Dawn of Direct Democracy (Úsvit přímé demokracie) party, is continuing the harsh rhetoric of party chair Tomio Okamura. Samková has released a statement in favor of a total ban on immigration into EU countries.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani enrolments into first grade exceeding capacity of school in Předlice

Ústí nad Labem, 30.1.2014 7:01, (ROMEA) Martin Košnar, director of the primary school in the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem, says that exponentially more children than usual are enrolling into the first grade there. All of the children enrolled there are of Romani nationality.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani candidate proposed for Deputy Human Rights Minister

Prague, 28.1.2014 7:54, (ROMEA) Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, the chair of the Czech Social Democrats, and Andrej Babiš, chair of the ANO movement, have not yet reached agreement on deputy ministerial appointments for the incoming cabinet. The names of some of the deputy ministers that ANO intends to send to the ministries have now been revealed.  full story

Czech lower house speaker condemns MP’s visit to neo-Nazi convicted of racially-motivated murder

Prague, 27.1.2014 15:27, (ROMEA) Czech MP Jan Hamáček (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD), the speaker of the lower house, has commented on the recent visit paid by Czech MP Tomio Okamura to Vlastimil Pechanec, who is serving time for the racially-motivated murder of a Romani man, calling the visit “extremely inappropriate and unfortunate.” Hamáček posted the comment through Facebook as follows: “In my opinion this casts a negative light not only on Mr Okamura and his party, but on the entire Chamber of Deputies.”  full story

Analysis: What if the Czech MP clears the neo-Nazi?

Litvínov, 27.1.2014 10:06, (ROMEA) Tomio Okamura, known to the Czech public as a more acceptable alternative to Tomáš Vandas, the chair of the ultra-right Workers' Social Justice Party (DSSS), has paid a visit to neo-Nazi Vlastimil Pechanec at the prison in Pardubice where he is serving a 17-year sentence for the murder of Otto Absolon, a Romani man. Okamura believes Pechanec's trial by three first-instance judges, three appeals court judges, and three Supreme Court justices was manipulated and politicized.  full story

Czech Human Rights Minister-designate: Populism won't resolve ghettos

Prague, 26.1.2014 7:09, (ROMEA) Czech Senator Jiří Dienstbier (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) has said he would like to legislate the right of every child to a place in preschool, greater powers for the ombudsman, and the opportunity for gay and lesbian couples to adopt when he takes up the post of human rights minister. While in office, he intends to spend most of his time on the issue of social exclusion and has a plan for supervising the cohesion and effectiveness of state measures in that area.  full story

Czech Republic: Trial to start in case of violent death of a Romani man at the hands of police

Kynšperk nad Ohří, 25.1.2014 17:04, (ROMEA) Here in the Czech Republic, the media in general and this news server in particular are often criticized for reporting too often on racially-motivated crimes committed against Romani people. The following example shows that this is not always the case, as there are many such cases that quickly fizzle out without the media following them at all.  full story

Czech Republic: Trial of brutal interethnic assault in Duchcov to start

Ustí nad Labem, 25.1.2014 15:48, (ROMEA) In February the Regional Court in Ústí nad Labem will begin trying the case of a brutal assault perpetrated last year in the town of Duchcov (Teplice district). Judge Markéta Morkusová informed the Czech News Agency of the planned trial yesterday.  full story

Czech MP visits convict doing time for racially motivated murder

Prague, 25.1.2014 10:32, (ROMEA) Czech MP Tomio Okamura, chair of the "Dawn of Direct Democracy" (Úsvit přímé demokracie) movement and its vice-chair, Jaroslav Novák, visited Vlastimil Pechanec today in prison in Pardubice. Pechanec was convicted of perpetrating the racially-motivated murder of Ota Absolon, a Romani man, in 2001 in Svitavy.  full story

After an eight-year break, Czech Labor Ministry to follow up on excluded localities research

Prague, 25.1.2014 0:20, (ROMEA) After an eight-year hiatus, the Czech Labor Ministry has announced it wants to repeat its research into so-called excluded localities. The ministry wants to determine whether ghettos in the Czech Republic have changed and whether there are more of them.  full story

Notorious Czech antigypsyist says she's leaving politics

Chomutov, 22.1.2014 22:42, (ROMEA) Ivana Řápková, a former mayor of Chomutov and former MP, resigned from the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) last Friday. Yesterday the daily Chomutovský deník reported she resigned because of long-term internal disagreements in the party.  full story