News

Will Brussels galvanize the Czech Gov't to end segregation of Roma in the schools?

UK/USA, 29.9.2014 23:52, (ROMEA) News server Romea.cz asked Dr Helen O'Nions, the editor of the Nottingham Law Journal and an HEA Fellow at the Centre for Conflict, Rights and Justice at Nottingham Law School, to discuss the significance of the European Commission's recent decision to launch infringement proceedings against the Czech Republic. The decision to begin infringement proceedings followed a complaint to the Commission filed 18 months ago by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), Amnesty International and the European Roma Rights Centre regarding discrimination against Romani children in their access to education.  full story

Czech Republic: Activists convince Romani voters in Krupka not to sell their votes

Krupka, 29.9.2014 22:43, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that NGOs fighting corruption have done their best over the weekend to convince local Romani voters in Krupka not to sell their votes in the upcoming local elections. The last municipal polls there had to be repeated three times because of vote-buying, and suspicions exist this year that the situation could repeat itself.  full story

Czech ultra-right leader rails against Arab spa clients

Teplice, 29.9.2014 22:15, (ROMEA) Several people were arrested by police on Saturday during an assembly convened in the town of Teplice by the Workers' Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti - DSSS). Police spokesperson Dan Vítek announced the arrests.  full story

Denmark marks 25th anniversary of becoming the first country to permit registered partnerships

Copenhagen/Prague, 29.9.2014 21:48, (ROMEA) Laws legalizing same-sex marriages are being commonly introduced today and famous figures are openly revealing their same-sex orientation. Liberal societies have grown accustomed to seeing the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community as a minority whose rights must be defended.  full story

Czech Republic officially recognizes more people who resisted communism

Prague, 29.9.2014 19:41, (ROMEA) Another 38 people have been recognized as participants in the resistance to and revolt against communism in the former Czechoslovakia. Certificates to that effect have been presented by Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnický (ANO) to, for example, the former Charter 77 signatory and journalist Otta Bednářová; the former dissident and post-1989 officer with the Security Information Services, Vladimír Hučín; and to Zdislav Zima, who assisted a French secret service agent; Hučín and Zima have also been awarded the status of war veteran.  full story

Roma woman flees racial attacks in Czech Republic, becomes UK police officer

Great Britain, 29.9.2014 16:48, (ROMEA) In Czech society, stereotypes usually put ethnic Roma on the wrong side of the law. In Great Britain, Romani people are offered unsuspected opportunities, and so it is that Dana Ghosh, a Romani woman from the Czech Republic, is in her police uniform for the first time today.  full story

Czech NGO releases exclusive survey by and about Romani women

Prague, 28.9.2014 22:28, (ROMEA) Research released earlier this month by the Slovo 21 civic association on the position of Romani women in the Czech Republic found that most Romani women consider their children's education to be very important. More than 600 Romani women were surveyed by the project.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani local candidate says racism poses the same threat as Fascism

Prostějov, 28.9.2014 20:33, (ROMEA) News server Romea.cz has prepared a series of brief interviews with Romani candidates in the upcoming local elections. This interview is with 18-year-old Ondřej Provazník, a candidate with the ANO movement in Prostějov.  full story

Czech town tries to prevent giant residential hotel from developing

Přerov, 28.9.2014 20:00, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that councilors in the Czech town of Přerov have said they would prefer to pay CZK 40 million for a building they don't need than see it turn into a giant residential hotel housing hundreds of socially vulnerable people. Local officials have approved a plan to purchase the local Hotel Strojař from the Czech Defense Ministry.  full story

Vienna names square after Romani celebrity

Vienna, Austria, European Union, 28.9.2014 2:08, (ROMEA) Earlier this month a square in the Viennese quarter of Neubau was named after one of its celebrated, recently deceased residents, Ceija Stojka. A Romani woman, Ms Stojka survived three concentration camps, lived a travelling lifestyle for years after the war, and made her living as a carpet seller.  full story

Problems of a Czech city: Aging populations, debt, depopulation, ghettos, not enough work, residential hotels

Ostrava, 28.9.2014 0:30, (ROMEA) The Czech city of Ostrava has several problems, which means deciding which are the most serious is not easy. Certainly problems with socially excluded localities and the rising number of residential hotels housing the most impoverished people are at the top of the list.  full story

Exhibition on postwar migration of Roma to the Czech Republic

Ostrava, 27.9.2014 23:10, (ROMEA) Earlier this month Ostrava's Mírové náměstí saw the installation of a stylized apartment housing the exhibition "Khatar san?" (Where are you from?) mapping the arrival of Romani people from Slovakia into the Ostrava region for work. The audiovisual exhibition presents the memories and stories of 11 men and women who headed for the Czech Republic from Romani settlements in Slovakia after 1945, according to the project's curator Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků.  full story

European NGOs protest nominee for Education Commissioner

Brussels, 26.9.2014 23:13, (ROMEA) In an open letter to President-elect of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, a coalition of European civil society networks and organizations say they consider the nomination of Tibor Navracsicsas as Commissioner for Education, Youth, Culture and Citizenship to be completely unacceptable. The NGOs say Navracsics was a proponent of policies implemented by Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán that contravene EU treaties, policies such as the constitutional reform process last year and media reforms in 2011 that Brussels itself criticized.  full story

International civil society welcomes EU action against Czech Republic over Roma educational segregation

Brussels/Budapest/London, 26.9.2014 22:11, (ROMEA) International civil society organizations have applauded Brussels' announcement that it is initiating infringement proceedings against the Czech Republic over its discrimination against Romani children in their access to education. The Open Society Foundations in London, the European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest, and the European Roma Information Office in Brussels all welcomed the decision.  full story

Romania: Yet another vulnerable Roma community evicted in the capital

Bucharest, Romania, 26.9.2014 21:41, (ROMEA) On 15 September 2014, over 100 Roma women, men, and children were evicted from their homes on Vulturilor Street in Bucharest. Demolition of the buildings began that same day.  full story

ROMEA holding training to improve image of Roma in the media

Prague, 26.9.2014 20:31, (ROMEA) ROMEA, o.p.s., in collaboration with the College of Media and Journalism in Prague (Vyšší odborná škola publicistiky), is holding a media training focused on practical skills for communicating with various kinds of media. The training will be given by professional journalists Roman Bradáč and Václav Sochor.  full story

Czech town's bulletin intentionally racist in runup to local elections

Albrechtice, 26.9.2014 19:33, (ROMEA) Albrechtice in the Jizerský Mountains may just be a small community, but we too have a municipal bulletin. If it were to be read by someone impartial, he or she would probably see it as a cross between a 1950's magazine promoting the "building of socialism" and a tabloid paper.  full story

Czech EdMin protests Brussels' criticism, AI confirms Roma are discriminated

Brussels/Prague, 26.9.2014 18:35, (ROMEA) New requirements from the European Commission regarding the education of Romani children in the Czech Republic have prompted a great outcry. Both the Czech Education Ministry and several NGOs that have long been involved in the problem have responded to the news.  full story

Czech Roma Holocaust victims and their relatives file criminal charges against MP

Prague, 26.9.2014 0:28, (ROMEA) The chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu - VPORH), Mr Čeněk Růžička, the ROMEA, o.p.s. organization, Mr Miroslav Kováč of the Equal Opportunities Party and Mr Michal Miko of the Slovo 21 association filed criminal charges against Czech MP Tomio Okamura on 2 September for the statements he made on the eve of the Roma Holocaust Remembrance Day doubting the existence of the so-called "gypsy camp" at Lety by Písek and downplaying the deaths of the hundreds imprisoned there, including children. The charges were filed by Mr Kováč and Mr Růžička in person at the District State Prosecutor for Prague 5 and included extensive appendices documenting the merits of their submission and the publicly available historical information that Okamura either ignored or even lied about in his public statement.  full story

Czech NGO says new law will force preschool clubs for impoverished children to close

Prague, 25.9.2014 23:33, (ROMEA) On 23 September the Czech lower house approved a ministerial draft of a law on children's groups. The terms of that legislation, according to the Czech NGO People in Need, establish insurmountable barriers to the operation of preschool clubs that provide a chance for at-risk children to succeed in the Czech education system and find skilled employment as adults.  full story