News

Commentary: Czech mayor declares war on "inadaptables" again

11.3.2015 19:12, (ROMEA) Mayor Jiří Čunek (Christian Democrats) has announced to the Czech News Agency that the town hall in Vsetín is establishing a working group on the issue of "inadaptables" and will "seek measures to make the town calm and safe and options for stopping these groups of inhabitants or individuals from causing problems and tensions in town." The Czech News Agency reports that the mayor believes the town hall needs to review whether its position on rent defaulters or other citizens who have repeated problems with maintaining order might be too generous in some cases.  full story

Director of Czech Gov't agency says petition against "gypsies" to PM is really about real estate

10.3.2015 19:10, (ROMEA) Dissatisfied citizens living at the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov have sent a petition to the Czech Government calling for a rigorous solution to their problems - they claim it is no longer possible to live there because of the "gypsy minority terrorizing the majority". They have also expressed concern that a hard-hitting anti-Romani event similar to the ones that took place there in 2008, which they call a "small-scale civil war", could be repeated.  full story

Commentary: America's "Bloody Sunday" 50 years on - racism is not yet defeated

9.3.2015 20:53 Fifty years ago, police in Selma, a town in the southern United States, attacked a peaceful demonstration by roughly 600 activists, most of them Black. Officers used tear gas and truncheons, and images flew around the world of one of the organizers, Amelie Obynton, lying unconscious on the ground.  full story

Greek court acquits Golden Dawn MP of assaulting female politicians

Athens, Greece, 9.3.2015 19:19, (ROMEA) On Friday, 6 March, a court in Greece acquitted an MP from the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn who physically assaulted two female left-wing politicians in 2012 during a live television broadcast. The Associated Press reports that a judge has decided that legislator Ilias Kasidiaris did not cause the women grievous bodily harm, as the charges read.  full story

Czech Republic: Work by Aleš Veselý to be featured as part of Memorial of Silence

Prague, 9.3.2015 17:42, (ROMEA) A sizable statue by the sculptor Aleš Veselý in the form of railroad tracks heading to heaven will be part of the Memorial of Silence (Památník ticha) to be installed at Prague's Bubny train station. The location is slated to become not just a place for recalling the tragic history of the transports of Jews to the concentration camps, but also a center for discussions about the Holocaust and its legacy today  full story

Czech Republic: Audit of Romani newspaper finds no wrongdoing

9.3.2015 16:31, (ROMEA) On 11 January, Pavel Pečinka, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Romano hangos periodical, wrote to Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman to say the publication had become a family business run in a non-transparent way with strange accounting practices and demanding an investigation. Several days ago the ministry undertook an audit and found no such problems at the editorial office.  full story

Czech Republic: Vandas re-elected DSSS chair

Prague, 9.3.2015 0:57, (ROMEA) The Workers' Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti - DSSS) will be led for the next two years by its only chair to date, Tomáš Vandas (age 46). At the party's convention yesterday, 90 of the 92 delegates participating voted for him.  full story

Romani hockey player pushes Spiš into the Slovak Extraliga

Spišká Nová Ves, Slovakia, 8.3.2015 2:56, (ROMEA) The Spišská Nová Ves hockey club, which won the opening of the Slovak Premiere League, is now fighting in the playoffs with Detva to advance into the Slovak Extraliga, and the excellent atmosphere in the stands pushing their players forward has been provided for several years now by local Romani fans. They come to do more than cheer on just "their" player, František Koky.  full story

Norwegian, UK, US ambassadors to Czech Republic praise nonprofit and school for Romani inclusion in Trmice

Trmice, 7.3.2015 21:07, (ROMEA) The Norwegian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Siri Ellen Sletner, UK Ambassador to the Czech Republic Jan Thompson, and US Ambassador to the Czech Republic Andrew Shapiro have praised a nonprofit organization and a primary school in the town of Trmice as a good example of how social inclusion should work. Trmice is considered a socially excluded locality; more than one-third of the children attending the local school are Romani.  full story

Czech Trade Inspection Authority investigating firms leasing apartments at Janov housing estate

7.3.2015 20:13, (ROMEA) The long-term experience of Romani apartment-seekers in the town of Litvínov is unequivocal: Apartments are only available for them to lease at the Janov housing estate. Over the past few years a ghetto has gradually been created there.  full story

Czech opinion poll: Roma still the least-liked

Prague, 7.3.2015 2:09, (ROMEA) Of the various national groups living in the Czech Republic, sympathy for Arabs, Greeks, Jews and Serbs has declined compared to last year, according to a February survey by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM). As in previous surveys, people continued to express the most sympathy for ethnic Czechs and Slovaks and the least sympathy for Romani people
 full story

Czech Republic: "Living Library" combats prejudice

Prague, 7.3.2015 1:26, (ROMEA) "This has definitely helped me in that I became aware, from their stories, of how hard life can be for people," says high school student Agáta Matějková of her experience with the Living Library. She won't be borrowing Čapek or Hemingway there, but she is able to speak with the "books" she chooses - literally.  full story

Janov residents petition Czech PM over "gypsies"

7.3.2015 0:10, (ROMEA) Residents of the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov who are calling themselves the "decent majority" have sent a petition to Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. The residents are asking the state to aggressively intervene in their neighborhood.  full story

Interview with director of documentary film about Romani girls

Prague, 6.3.2015 21:55, (ROMEA) Perla is a Romani girl growing up in a slum in the east of Slovakia. Jenica is a Romani girl growing up in an impoverished suburb of Paris.  full story

Slovakia: Acquittal of police who bullied Romani children called unacceptable

Košice, Slovakia, 5.3.2015 20:12, (ROMEA) The acquittal by a Slovak court last week of police officers charged with abusing six Romani boys in 2009 has sparked a great deal of disagreement in the country. The court refused to enter into evidence the video footage taken by the officers themselves using mobile phones during the beating and humiliation of the boys.  full story

Czech vice-mayor wants to turn ghetto into recreation zone

5.3.2015 0:44, (ROMEA) The town of Ústí nad Labem wants to transform the ghetto of Předlice, where two years ago a young woman was killed when a building collapsed, into a recreation zone. Is this a realistic vision?  full story

Czech Republic: Non-Romani and Romani neighbors don't communicate or share decision-making on local matters

Prague, 4.3.2015 20:21, (ROMEA) In order to acquire prospects in life that give one hope for the future, one must have high self-esteem, pride in oneself and one's own actions, and respect for one's own identity. These are the values that the debilitating misery in the ghettos deprives their residents of.  full story

Czech human rights film festival features films about Roma

Prague, 3.3.2015 21:58, (ROMEA) The 17th annual "One World" International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will offer viewers 114 films from 59 countries (the complete festival program is here). "It's not that long ago that the basic principles of human freedom were not upheld in our country either. That's why it does no harm to take a moment before spring comes to look at the world from a different perspective than your everyday one," festival organizers say.  full story

Czech politicians avoid anti-racist demos, but will new Justice Minister change that?

Prague, 3.3.2015 20:57, (ROMEA) He has participated in several anti-racist assemblies and demonstrations, and in September 2011 he was an initiator of the Hate is No Solution (Nenávist není řešení) platform. Yesterday Robert Pelikán became the interim Czech Justice Minister.  full story

Slovakia: Riot unit attack on Romani settlement remains unsolved

1.3.2015 21:50, (ROMEA) One year on from initiating a criminal prosecution in the case of an attack on the Budulovská Romani settlement in the town of Moldava nad Bodvou by police riot units, Slovak justice authorities have not managed to complete their investigation. That is the finding of a new report by the European Roma Rights Centre and the Equity civic association.  full story