Commentary

Commentary: Protection under the law applies to everyone equally, it's shameful to traffic in it

Prague, 6.9.2013 22:04, (ROMEA) When I read the news recently that representatives of a group of Roma in Ostrava had offered to turn in delinquents in exchange for better police protection against right-wing extremists, I thought it was a bad joke. It wasn't.  full story

Czech Republic: The two faces of ODS - Populism vs. reality

Prague, 4.9.2013 17:55, (ROMEA) On 23 August 2013, the press spokesperson for the Civic Democratic Party (Občanská demokratická strana - ODS) verbally promised that the party would be issuing a statement on the anti-Roma demonstrations planned for the next day across the country. The party has yet to issue an official statement on those events.  full story

Commentary: Experts and extremists at Czech Television

Prague, 1.9.2013 22:21, (ROMEA) At public broadcaster Czech Television (ČT), anyone can be a sociologist. All it takes is to blame everything on the "inadaptables."  full story

Commentary: Frustration, political vacuum, and a society without vision

Prague, 1.9.2013 1:06, (ROMEA) It is both remarkable and symptomatic that the unrest in the Czech Republic this summer and the increasingly oppressive atmosphere in society is receiving no response from the country's political representatives. They are all so overwhelmed by their own operations, by the ongoing chaos and the "fight for parliamentary democracy" here that they have no energy left for what is going on beyond the walls of their party secretariats.  full story

Commentary: Are Czech academics and politicians giving cover to neo-Nazis?

Prague, 7.8.2013 15:44, (ROMEA) Prior to this past weekend's neo-Nazi demonstration in Vítkov, sociologist Jan Keller participated in a press briefing convened by the Moravian-Silesian Regional Police on the issue. His controversial comments there have prompted a great deal of response (video of the briefing, in Czech only, is available at http://www.romea.cz/cz/zpravodajstvi/martin-fafejta-dava-jan-keller-kryti-ceskym-nackum-a-kryji-je-cesti-politici).  full story

Robert Rustem: Le Point’s editor should resign after ‘Hitler and the Roma’ poll stunt

Brussels, 26.7.2013 11:19, (ROMEA) With breath-taking speed, Europe moves from one ugly episode to the next in its summer rampage against Roma people.  full story

Valeriu Nicolae: Blacklisted – the new low of the European Commission

Bucharest, 26.7.2013 10:33, (ROMEA) Last week a close friend told me that the European Commission blacklisted the NGO she works for. I used to work for the same NGO in the past. The members of the network are people I know for a long time- people I am proud to have worked with- committed and hardworking.  full story

Commentary: The structure of hatred

Prague, 22.7.2013 23:08, (ROMEA) A society dominated by relationships of competition, one where the argument that "the ends justify the means" is considered valid, creates lightning rods out of phenomena it doesn't know how to deal with or doesn't want to handle. In this society, those phenomena are homeless people and especially Romani people. Here, if you give these people a kick, you can easily justify your actions as moral.  full story

Miroslav Kováč: Let's abolish all welfare for everyone!

Prague, 16.7.2013 21:54, (ROMEA) Recently I have observed online, on the street, at anti-Romani demonstrations, and even from the lips of politicians that many in the Czech Republic believe Romani people here enjoy an above-average standard of living because of thos country's generous social welfare system. I am Roma and I happen to live in the real world, traveling to various so-called excluded localities (I even used to live in one myself). As a citizen who knows the law and is familiar with this issue, I have decided to share my knowledge with those in the majority population who are ignorant of the facts, especially with those who, perhaps because of laziness (at best) have succumbed to all the quasi-fascist hoaxes, myths and populism on this issue, those who term themselves the "decent people" but scoff at the laws, as well as those politicians who make it directly possible for the corrupt to increase their personal bank accounts abroad by adopting various "measures" through which our asset-stripped "state coffers" are supposed to be "filled".  full story

Commentary: Why does the phrase "white aggressor" bother readers?

Prague, 2.7.2013 15:58, (ROMEA) Recently, in many articles published by Czech media outlets across the spectrum, we see the following expressions being used more and more often: "Romani aggressor" or the plural "Romani aggressors", "Romani racist aggressors", "brutal Romani gang", "violent Romani man", "a group of aggressors (Romani, of course)", "six aggressors (Romani)". The neo-Nazis Dufek and Svoboda, who organized demonstrations not long ago in Duchcov against Romani people (all of them), used the slogan: "Against the Romani aggressors".  full story

Patrik Banga: Violence should not be minimized, but "Čhikatar het" action deserves praise overall

Prague, 28.6.2013 17:17, (ROMEA) This commentary was first published in Czech on Monday, 24 June 2013. For reporting on the incidents it refers to, please see http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-republic-anti-roma-demonstrations-tomorrow-in-duchcov-over-assault and
http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-republic-injuries-after-dsss-provokes-street-warfare-in-duchcov-police-use-tear-gas-and-water-cannon  full story

Commentary: Absurdly low sentences for murderous hunt for Roma in Czech Republic

Prague, 20.6.2013 18:44, (ROMEA) A new wave of open antigypsyism has recently resurfaced in the Czech Republic, one of several in this country's recent history. Both poverty and unemployment are contributing factors to it.  full story

Commentary: When ignorance of the law produces racism

Prague, 13.6.2013 20:53, (ROMEA) After the recent incidents in Duchcov (see http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-police-only-one-romani-person-involved-in-new-incident-in-duchcov) discussion of a supposed "double standard" in the Czech legal system has once again taken off on social networking sites. For now, only verbal attacks are being made in general against all the members of a particular minority in this society, one that allegedly does not obey the laws and abuses the welfare system (those attacks, however, could soon become physical as well).  full story

Commentary: Let's distance ourselves from Roma who give us a bad reputation

Prague, 8.6.2013 19:09, (ROMEA) What do you think the effect is of headlines like the following: “Roma commit another brutal attack: 12-year-old boy beaten with sticks in Duchcov!" Many Czech people read that information and think: "Again? How much longer and we going to stand for this? Why is everyone conniving with them, even closing down the internet discussions so we can't even say our piece?!"  full story

Commentary: Violence in Duchov and Teplice, superficial media are worsening coexistence

Prague, 6.6.2013 21:53, (ROMEA) This commentary was originally published in Czech on 29 May 2013.  full story

Commentary: My father would not have tolerated what the Duchcov attacker did

Duchcov, 1.6.2013 19:47, (ROMEA) So many people, and not just recently, have been cursing us Roma (or Gypsies, whichever you prefer). I'm not going to write about the recent murder of a Romani man in Teplice, because the police are refusing to say anything about that case. What bothers me today is the brutal assault by a Romani boy on a married couple in Duchcov and the opinions expressed online about how that incident should be "addressed".  full story

Marcel Grünza: Gadje, what are you so proud of?

Liberec, 28.5.2013 22:37, (ROMEA) I have just read a blog posting here entitled "Have you ever seen a gypsy in a library?" I am disgusted by these outbursts by would-be Czechs about Romani people. Some of them consider us all lazy, uneducated parasites who don't work, who don't know how to read and write, and who scrounge off of society.  full story

Commentary: Be proud you are Romani

Prague, 3.5.2013 20:13, (Romano vod'i) Some children were playing on the playground. They were probably being too loud because they were really into their game. Some might say they were whooping it up. A neighbor didn’t like it and started yelling at them out the window to be quiet. She threw in some remarks about “gypsies” because the children were Romani. One of the little girls looked up at the lady and said to her: “Lady, why are you shouting at us? When you were still swinging from the trees, we were building Mohenjo Daro!”  full story

Valeriu Nicolae: Roma Social Inclusion Measures the European Commission Can and Should Take

Bucharest, 30.4.2013 10:15, (ROMEA) I have been accused in the past of always complaining about what the Commission does and never offering “constructive” solutions myself. Factually this is false.I am a strong pro-European. I also reject sugar-coating and I think critical thinking is what can get us out of the mess we are in at this moment.  full story

Commentary: Czech Senator Okamura’s view of people in need

Prague, 28.4.2013 1:35, (ROMEA) After November 1989, people in this country had high expectations. For example, they expected that the practices of a police state would come to an end. Unfortunately, those expectations haven’t been met, which is why I am constantly raising that issue.  full story