News

Slovakia: Police raid extremists

Bratislava, Slovakia, 1.3.2013 22:35, (ROMEA) News server Aktuálně.sk reports that the Slovak Police have performed several house searches around the country during which they confiscated electronic equipment and extremist-themed clothing. Ten people have now been charged.


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Nine families still at risk of eviction and homelessness in Ostrava

Ostrava, 1.3.2013 17:21, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that people living in the residential hotel on Božkova street in Ostrava now have only three months in which to find new homes. The municipal department of Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz will be closing it at the end of May and will not be offering the tenants substitute accommodation, but the nine families have nowhere to go. As news server Romea.cz reported 14 days ago, they have no money and are at risk of ending up on the street.  full story

Valeriu Nicolae: Incentives to stimulate NGOs and governments to effectively address social inclusion

Sofia, 1.3.2013 16:47, (ROMEA) Before we can even start to look at incentives, we need to consider the people responsible for setting up incentives. While the most effective incentives differ from case to case, many of the basic requirements for those in charge of finding incentives are the same: hands-on and academic experience, a high level of trust within the targeted communities, empathy, and great communication skills. Other essential skills are the ability to adapt and respond quickly to rising challenges, critical thinking, and the ability to accept and learn from inherent failures.  full story

Slovak PM heavily criticized for his comments about minorities

Bratislava, Slovakia, 28.2.2013 23:48, (ROMEA) Representatives of the European People's Party and the socialist faction at the EP, as well as representatives of national minorities in Slovakia, are criticizing Slovak PM Robert Fico for saying that minorities in his country are trying to extort the state through minority rights. Fico said yesterday that ethnic minorities, minority opinion-holders and national minorities are looking for handouts while refusing to meet their obligations to the state. He insisted that these practices must change and that Slovaks did not establish an independent state in order to privilege minorities.  full story

Commentary: Hate is just around the corner in Europe

Uppsala, Sweden, 28.2.2013 22:15, (ROMEA) They say 2013 is the year when the euro crisis will resolve after hitting rock bottom and everything will start to get better. We hope so, but we can only say this about some parts of Europe. In Spain we have six million unemployed and in Greece there is no light at the end of the tunnel.  full story

Slovak PM sharply criticizes minorities

Martin, Slovakia, 28.2.2013 16:59, (ROMEA) A dispute has flared up in Slovakia over whether bus stops and railway stations in areas predominantly inhabited by the Hungarian minority should be labeled bilingually. Slovak PM Robert Fico added fuel to the fire yesterday, saying he wants what he referred to as minority rights extortion to stop, whether it be on the part of an ethnic minority, minority opinion-holders, or the Romani minority.  full story

Czechs fathering children with non-EU mothers could face DNA tests

Prague, 27.2.2013 23:48, (ROMEA) Czech men who father a child with a foreign woman from a non-EU country may be required to undergo DNA testing as of next year. If they have not married the mother of their daughter or son and want their child to have Czech citizenship, they may first have to prove their paternity. A draft law on citizenship under discussion in the lower house has proposed the measure.  full story

Slovakia: Two men charged with assaulting black basketball player

Nitra, Slovakia, 27.2.2013 22:56, (ROMEA) Police in the Slovak town of Nitra charged two 21-year-old men yesterday with attacking Jean Rony Cadot, a black basketball player for the Nitra team. The assault was sparked by an argument in the Devil's Pub in Nitra after someone spilled a drink on Cadot's pants there.  full story

Czech Republic: Youth gives Nazi salute, racist abuse to Romani bus driver

Ústí nad Labem, 26.2.2013 22:29, (ROMEA) On Monday 25 February a Romani trolleybus driver had to call a municipal police patrol to deal with a young man who assaulted him verbally, shouted racist slogans and gave the Nazi salute. The driver, himself a former municipal police officer, called his former colleagues to take charge of the youth and remove him from the bus, as his behavior was not just an assault on the driver, but was bothering his fellow passengers.  full story

Czech EdMin to research number of children educated as disabled

Prague, 26.2.2013 16:38, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that the Czech Education Ministry wants to find out how many pupils are being taught according to an educational program for children with "light brain dysfunction". The Czech Republic has long faced criticism that it enrolls large numbers of Romani pupils into what were once called the "special schools" who do not belong there. Better record-keeping is one step toward correcting the situation.  full story

Slovakia: Two settlement children die in the ruins of an unoccupied building

Lomnička, Slovakia, 26.2.2013 2:10, (ROMEA) The Slovak Republic Press Agency (Tisková agentura Slovenské republiky - TASR) reports that two children died just after 12 PM yesterday in the village of Lomnička (Stará Ľubovňa district). The children were buried by the collapsed ruins of an unoccupied building in their settlement. Pavol Vravec, the operations commander for the Regional Directorate of the Emergency and Firefighting Corps in Prešov, said seven firefighters intervened at the scene using heat-seeking cameras to search the ruins for survivors.  full story

Commentary: Did Romani activist cause CZK 10 million damage?

Prague, 24.2.2013 20:46, (ROMEA) Ladislav Bílý, the chair of the Romani Civic Association (Romské občanské sdružení) was sentenced this week to six years in prison for subsidy fraud. According to information in the media, he committed the fraud between 2007 and 2010 when he requested subsidies in the name of the association from the municipality of Karlovy Vary, the Karlovy Vary Regional Authority, and the Czech Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and submitted a falsified confirmation of solvency with his application.  full story

US clinic keeps black staff away from white newborn

Detroit, Michigan, USA, 23.2.2013 20:28, (ROMEA) Several black nurses recently filed charges against a clinic in the US state of Michigan after its management acceded to an illegal request to ban black staff from coming into contact with a hospitalized patient. The Associated Press reports that it is an "open secret" that health care facilities in the USA often make it possible for patients to refuse treatment by doctors and nurses who are not of their same race.  full story

Slovakia: Brutal attack on black basketball player under investigation

Nitra, Slovakia, 23.2.2013 19:49, (ROMEA) News server SME.sk reports that basketball player Jean Rony Cadot has suffered a brutal assault in Slovakia. The player, who was born in the Bahamas, has been playing in the Slovak league since last fall. He was attacked and beaten in front of a nightclub in the town of Nitra.  full story

Right-wing British press warns of "beggar" influx in 2014

Boston, UK, 23.2.2013 18:36, (ROMEA) Agence France-Presse reports that the town of Boston in Great Britain has begun to resemble a small corner of Eastern Europe, where butcher shops feature wreaths of Polish kielbasa and vodka on the shelves and people converse in Latvian and Lithuanian on the street. According to the latest census, more than 10 % of the inhabitants of the quiet little town in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England is from one of the formerly communist countries that joined the European Union at the start of the millennium.  full story

Commentary: Martin Luther King, Jr's testament for Romani people

Prague, 22.2.2013 22:11, (ROMEA) This piece was composed as an introductory contribution to a debate about Martin Luther King, Jr in Prague that was convened by the American Center and the Slon publishing house, which has released the first selection of Dr King's works in Czech translation.  full story

Italy: Two Romani people die in fire, investigation ongoing

Giugliano, Italy, 22.2.2013 19:16, (ROMEA) Two Romani people from Eastern Europe, most probably from Romania, died this week in a fire that destroyed three shanties at a "Gypsy campsite" in the Neapolitan town of Giugliano.  full story

Czech High Court removes defendants' attorney from "machete case"

Liberec, 22.2.2013 18:27, (ROMEA) The Czech Press Agency reports that Judge Eva Drahotová, the chair of Regional Court in Liberec, has informed them that the High Court in Prague has removed attorney Klára Samková from representing defendants in the case of the so-called "machete attack" in Nový Bor during which three people were seriously injured. "The High Court has decided that Dr Samková can no longer represent any of the defendants," the judge said.  full story

Slovak PM wants Romani children to attend boarding schools

Bratislava, Slovakia, 21.2.2013 23:26, (ROMEA) Slovak PM Fico is proposing what he has himself termed "extreme measures" for Romani children, namely, that they be educated at boarding schools. Peter Pollak, the Slovak Government Plenipotentiary for the Romani Community, does not agree with this solution.  full story

Hungary: Swastikas, SS symbols legal to display as of May

Budapest, Hungary, 21.2.2013 23:03, (ROMEA) On Tuesday, the Hungarian Constitutional Court abolished a statute banning the public use of symbols of totalitarian power. The symbols concerned are the hammer and sickle, the Nazi swastika, and the red five-pointed star. The court said the ban violated the right to freedom of speech and was not worded precisely enough  full story