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Czech Republic: Did Romani people traffic in votes in Brno?

20.2.2015 1:55, (ROMEA) The question of whether a racketeering operation was involved in vote-buying during last fall's municipal elections in Brno depends on how racketeering is defined. On 17 February the Czech Constitutional Court overturned a decision that had invalidated the results of that poll in the Brno-sever municipal department.
 full story

Czech court rules Romani NGO must return money to Regional Authority

Liberec, 20.2.2015 0:57, (ROMEA) The Liberec Romani Association (Liberecké romské sdružení - LRS) must return CZK 2.6 million (EUR 95 000) to the Liberec Regional Authority plus 8.05 % interest, according to a recent court verdict. The NGO will also have to pay CZK 133 000 (EUR 4 860) in court fees.  full story

Czech Republic: "Counter-petition" asks for Romani inclusion in schools

Czech Republic, 19.2.2015 23:40, (ROMEA) Several years ago, the "white" parents of first-graders sent the following message to the director of a primary school in Brno: "We are asking that the first grade cohorts in the school be created such that the non-Romani children will be together in one and the Romani children in the other. We are warning you that if there are more than three Romani children in the class, we will enroll our children in a different school."  full story

Czech poll finds more optimism, but also more fear of immigrants

Prague, 19.2.2015 21:27, (ROMEA) Last year the optimism of Czechs grew significantly in many areas of public life. According to most people, however, the situation with respect to immigration has deteriorated in the Czech Republic, as has the security situation.  full story

Drahomír R. Horváth: Czech Romani Integration Strategy is pure discrimination

19.2.2015 20:37, (ROMEA) From time to time I receive first drafts of Government materials to comment on before they make their way, as bills proposed by the Government, to the lower house. These materials are various concepts, strategies, strategic plans - even strategic "wars".  full story

Concert against segregation this Saturday in Prague

Prague, 19.2.2015 16:30, (ROMEA) This Saturday, right beneath the statue of St. Václav on Wenceslas Square in Prague, brilliant music by many different bands will be played in response to the recent remarks by the Czech President stating that disabled pupils should be segregated in the schools. The concert will take place on 21 February at 15:00 and is free.  full story

Do Romani media make sense?

Prague, 19.2.2015 15:13, (ROMEA) Do "Romani media" make sense? Are such media outlets just components of "ethno-business"?  full story

Fifth anniversary of Czech court dissolving the neo-Nazi Workers Party

Prague, 17.2.2015 21:46, (ROMEA) Five years ago, on 17 February 2010, the Czech Supreme Administrative Court agreed with a Government motion to dissolve the ultra-right Workers' Party (DS). The court ruled in favor of the Government on its second attempt.  full story

Security lax at Czech trial of alleged ultra-right arsonists and others

Plzeň, 17.2.2015 1:08, (ROMEA) Aš, Hodonín, Praha, Sokolov and Trutnov: These are the names of the different places where the defendants in the first prosecution for racist violence to be investigated by the Organized Crime Detection Unit's Department of Extremism and Terrorism have come from. While this is the largest case of its kind ever to be solved and brought to trial, Czech media reporting on it has been very brief  full story

Czech Republic: Islamophobic demonstration greeted by counter-protest

Brno, 15.2.2015 0:03, (ROMEA) The Czech News Agency reports that about 600 people came to Moravské Square in Brno today to demonstrate against Islam. Advocates of religious freedom and tolerance convened their own assembly nearby, numbering about 200.  full story

Editorial: Insults are preferable to censorship

Prague, 14.2.2015 20:29, (ROMEA) Are Internet discussions facing fundamental restrictions? Will online news servers be forced to close their discussion boards or to strictly regulate them?  full story

Czech Constitutional Court backs activist in dispute with MP

Prague, 13.2.2015 22:00, (ROMEA) "The illegal behavior of MP Řápková has generated CZK 8 million of debt for the town of Chomutov so, to be honest, it is rather ridiculous for her to try to combat 'inadpatables' when she has proven so 'inadaptable' herself," said Daniel Hůle. The staffer with the NGO People in Need was commenting on a proposal brought by MP Lenka Kohoutová and MP Řápková to it legal for collections agencies to attach an individual's welfare benefits, which would leave the insolvent with only the legally-defined subsistence minimum as income.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani town councilor says housing, unemployment worry people the most

Chomutov, 13.2.2015 20:29, (ROMEA) "I am mainly concerned with improving relations between the majority society and Romani people, with helping people who want to work and are unable to, and with improving housing policy," says David Ištok. After the recently repeated elections he is now a member of the Chomutov town council after having been active in several nonprofit organizations and working as a crime prevention assistant to the Chomutov Municipal Police.  full story

Czech lower house removes controversial definition of disability and passes education amendment

Prague, 13.2.2015 19:23, (ROMEA) Today the Czech lower house came to a surprising agreement, voting 170:6 to remove a dubious section of a paragraph in an amendment to the Schools Act on pupils with special educational needs. News server Romea.cz has covered the dispute over the amendment here and here.  full story

Czech Republic: HateFree Zones combat rising intolerance

Prague, 13.2.2015 0:53, (ROMEA) Places that are open to all irrespective of their ethnicity or other group affiliation can become branded HateFree Zones. The branding is a new activity of the HateFree Culture campaign being run by the Human Rights Section of the Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation Jiří Dienstbier (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD).  full story

Czech Republic: Drop-in club moves and starts children's rights project

Brno, 13.2.2015 0:06, (ROMEA) The Pavlač drop-in club, which has been working in a socially excluded locality of Brno for 13 years, is re-opening after a year's hiatus at its new address, Vranovská 4. The club will provide social services to children and youth from the Brno city center and surrounding neighborhoods.  full story

Czech anti-Muslim group tries to incite Roma against Muslims

Prague, 12.2.2015 23:03, (ROMEA) The ambitious xenophobes in the group called "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" use an intellectual perspective and language of manipulative half-truths and would-be humorous, unctuous servility toward the stereotypical lack of thought here about immigrants, intellectuals, minorities, multiculturalism, nonprofits - and, naturally, Muslims. It is an open question whether there is any point in dealing with them or responding to them.  full story

Hungarian ultra-right MP says Romani people are one of the country's "biggest problems"

Budapest, 12.2.2015 1:04, (ROMEA) The first child born in 2015 would usually just get a brief mention in the Hungarian media. Rikárdó Rácz, however became the most famous infant in the country within the course of a few days' time.  full story

Renata Berkyová: Slovak reporting on same-sex adoption and marriage casts aspersions on Roma

Prague, 12.2.2015 0:26, (ROMEA) Last Saturday an eighth referendum was held in Slovakia, a referendum "for the family" which has sparked a rather large fuss. The "Alliance for the Family" group, as the initiator of the referendum, has been haunting the public with the idea that the Slovak family is at risk, talking about freedom of speech and of the press, human rights violations, and forced, ideologically-driven sex education.  full story

Czech survey shows that young people have double standards about Roma

Prague, 11.2.2015 21:34, (ROMEA) A survey conducted by the MEDIAN agency for the HateFree Culture initiative, which is being implemented by the Human Rights Section of the Czech Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation, reports that more than half of young people surveyed in the Czech Republic believe that hatred on the Internet is so commonplace that there is no point in responding to it. The initiative is now set to establish in-person contact with people in regions throughout the country.  full story