News

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

Ukraine: Terrorist attack in Kharkov results in four dead, hopelessness and insecurity

1.3.2015 20:19, (ROMEA) In the Czech Republic, the bloodshed caused by the shooting in Uherský Brod, the worst such incident in Czech history, has overshadowed media coverage of a terrorist attack committed last weekend against those participating in the "March for Dignity" in Kharkov to mark the first anniversary of the victory of the Maidan uprising. Throughout Ukraine, concerns have multiplied that a new phase of the civil war might be beginning in Kharkov involving an expansion of the war zone and the destabilization of the tense local situation in the run-up to municipal elections this fall.  full story

videoSlovakia: Scandalous verdict acquits police of torturing Romani children

Bratislava, Slovakia, 28.2.2015 23:57, (ROMEA) Yesterday a court in Slovakia acquitted all 10 current and former police officers who faced prosecution for abusing Romani children at a police station. The police filmed their humiliation of the children using their mobile phones and shared the footage.  full story

Greece: Suspended sentence for racist remarks made to physician from Nigeria

Thessaloniki, Greece, 28.2.2015 22:16, (ROMEA) A Greek court has handed down a suspended sentence of six months in prison, postponed for three years, against a patient who made a racist statement to a doctor of Nigerian origin. The Associated Press reports that the male patient verbally attacked the female physician during his intake at a hospital to which he had been transported because of breathing difficulties.  full story

International caricaturists' meeting cancelled: Is extremism trumping freedom of speech?

Caen, France, 28.2.2015 21:45, (ROMEA) A museum in the French town of Caen has cancelled its traditional international festival of political caricatures, which is held every five years, out of concern that terrorists might attack it. Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports that the meeting was originally scheduled to take place in April.  full story

Czech Republic: Were the Romani Council elections in Ostrava a farce, or a sign of hope?

28.2.2015 20:18, (ROMEA) According to various estimates, there are between 25 000 to 40 000 Romani people living in the city of Ostrava, of whom about 6 000 live in "excluded localities" or ghettos. Earlier this month, elections took place in Ostrava for a "Romani Council".  full story

Analysis: Without debt relief, Czech Gov't efforts to integrate Roma may not succeed

Prague, 28.2.2015 18:21, (ROMEA) The impoverished, unfree people in the ghettos of the Czech Republic need to "raise up their heads" - they need to become free again, to find better prospects for their lives. How can this be achieved?
 full story

Karel Holomek: The Roma are a nation! That is the key to their integration.

28.2.2015 1:50, (ROMEA) I have several basic comments to make about the opinions recently expressed about Romani people by Roman Krištof in his interview with Romea.cz. Coincidentally, this has become a big issue now, not because of the polemics around Krištof's opinions, but because the Government has just adopted, as a binding document, its Romani Integration Strategy to 2020 and, shortly before that, the lower house adopted an amendment to the Schools Act concerning the education of Romani children in the Czech schools (which has not been very successful to date).  full story

Czech-language hate group tries to pass off picture of Nobel Prize winner as its Facebook administrator

Prague, 27.2.2015 21:53, (ROMEA)  full story

Survey on Czech school reform: Law alone will not resolve ethnic segregation

27.2.2015 20:09, (ROMEA) Is Czech society heading toward a fairer school system that will no longer discriminate against children who are medically disabled or socially disadvantaged? A system that will not discriminate against children who are Romani?  full story

Commentary: Czech Trade Inspection Authority report downplays discrimination against Romani consumers

27.2.2015 19:18, (ROMEA) Last year inspectors with the Czech Trade Inspection Authority (Česká obchodní inspekce - ČOI) proved that Romani consumers had been discriminated against in eight separate cases. The ČOI has reported the findings in a press releae today summarizing the results of the 1 254 audits it conducted in 2014.  full story

Czech exhibition maps little-known history of those who survived Nazi concentration camps

Prague, 27.2.2015 0:06, (ROMEA) A new exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Prague shows postwar Czechoslovakia as a crossroads for thousands of homeless Jewish people who fled pogroms after the end of the Second World War or headed to Palestine and the West. The exhibition opened today at the Robert Guttman Gallery on U Staré školy Street in Prague and will be there until 23 August 2015.  full story

Jarmila Balážová on the Czech Government Romani Integration Strategy

Prague, 26.2.2015 19:35, (ROMEA) Jarmila Balážová, press spokesperson for Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier, has responded to questions from news server Romea.cz about the newly-approved Romani Integration Stratey to 2020.  full story

Expert says Czech society's discussion of Islam is the worst in Europe

26.2.2015 0:25, (ROMEA) "The discussion [of Islam] in the Czech Republic is not substantive, we are deceiving ourselves," says Miloš Mendel, an Arabist and Islamologist at Masaryk University in an interview for news server Aktuálně.cz. When asked what bothers him so much about the Czech discussion of Islam, he answered as follows:  full story