News

Czech practical primary schools to be transformed, not closed

Prague, 4.2.2013 17:33, (ROMEA) Deputy Education Minister Jiří Nantl says "practical primary schools" in the Czech Republic will not be closed as many fear, but that it is necessary to transform them as per a European Court of Human Rights judgment so that pupils are not enrolled into such schools simply because they come from socially disadvantaged environments. Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Monika Šimůnková told a public hearing in the Czech Senate today that the schools must be transformed.  full story

Czech initiative finds housing for Romani residential hotel evictees

Ústí nad Labem, 4.2.2013 16:43, (ROMEA) The Romani families evacuated from the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem who remained in the residential hotel on Čelakovského street in the Krásné Březno quarter after its closure have all found new housing. The families have started moving into properties in the the Klíše quarter that were found for them by the Housing for All (Bydlení pro všechny) initiative.  full story

Czech initiative: Residential hotel tenants need rapid assistance

Ústí nad Labem, 2.2.2013 20:38, (ROMEA) News server Romea.cz is translating in full below a press release from the Housing for All (Bydlení pro všechny) initiative on the current situation at the residential hotel in the Krásné Březno quarter of Ústí nad Labem. According to information from one of the Romani tenants, everyone occupying the residential hotel must move out by Tuesday at the very latest. Of course, everyone is now sleeping in the cold at the property because the heat has been disconnected.  full story

How Romani people are living in Ostrava, Czech Republic

Ostrava, 2.2.2013 19:12, (ROMEA) The photographs that follow are from Ostrava today. Near the main train station a memorial to Holocaust victims was erected a while back. Its dominant feature, a Star of David, is comprised of several separate elements, as you can see in the photographs.  full story

Czech initiative says town must take responsibility for evictees

Ústí nad Labem, 2.2.2013 0:54, (ROMEA) The Housing for All initiative (Iniciativa Bydlení pro všechny), which is assisting people living at the residential hotel on Čelakovského street in Ústí nad Labem, is calling on the owner of that property, the CPI Byty company, to reconnect electricity and water service to the building and extend the rental contract held by those occupying it. Families with children remain at the residential hotel who have not yet been able to find acceptable accommodation into which to move. The occupants of the residential hotel have been supported by Czech Helsinki Committee chair Anna Šabatová and former presidential candidate Táňa Fischerová. News server Romea.cz publishes a full translation of the initiative's latest press release, first released in Czech on 1 February at 10:45 CET, below.  full story

Situation of Native Americans similar to that of Czech Roma

Portland/New York, USA, 2.2.2013 0:37, (ROMEA) David Beňák, Patrik Banga and David Tišer, three civically active Romani men from the Czech Republic, are participating in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in the United States of America. Their visit will last approximately three weeks and will include several American cities where they will meet with representatives of organizations implementing interesting projects in the area of human rights, community work, and minority rights advocacy.  full story

Utilities cut to occupied residential hotel in Czech town

Ústí nad Labem, 1.2.2013 17:03, (ROMEA) The situation of the very poorest people living at the residential hotel on Čelakovského street in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem remains critical. The CPI Byty company, which owns the building in the Krásné Březno quarter, has ended its contract with the business leasing it. This morning an extended deadline by which the people living in the building were to move out expired with people still in the building - not just the occupants themselves, but also activists from the Housing for All initiative (Iniciativa Bydlení pro všechny) who came to help them. In a press release, the town of Ústí has stated that the families got themselves into this bad situation through their own actions.  full story

Slovakia: Košice is the European Capital of Culture 2013

Košice, Slovakia, 1.2.2013 13:08, (ROMEA) Košice is, after Bratislava, the second biggest city in Slovakia. It is not really that popular in terms of tourism but this is about to change. Košice is, together with Marseille, the European Capital of Culture 2013. Part of Košice’s culture should also be defined by the Romany culture as about 5.000 Roma are living in this city.  full story

Czech Housing for All initiative: We won't allow families to be split up

1.2.2013 3:31, (ROMEA) The Housing for All initiative has issued the following press release, which news server Romea.cz is publishing in full translation:  full story

Czech NGO: Some evicted families rejected housing options without giving a reason

1.2.2013 2:57, (ROMEA) The organization People in Need (Člověk v tísni) has issued a press release claiming that some families now being evicted from the residential hotel on Čelakovského street in Ústí nad Labem were assisted by their staffers with finding substitute accommodation and allegedly rejected the options offered to them. News server Romea.cz is publishing the press release below in full translation:  full story

The European Court of Human Rights decided: the placement of Roma children in schools for mentally disabled is discriminatory

Strasbourg, France, 31.1.2013 16:16, (ROMEA) The claim was that there is a systemic misdiagnosis of Roma children as mentally disabled which was going on since at least the 1970s. The Hungarian government was accused to use this as a tool to segregate Roma children form non-Roma children.  full story

videoCzech firm to evict residential hotel tenants tonight

Ústí nad Labem, 31.1.2013 14:55, (ROMEA) The situation at the residential hotel on Čelakovského street in the Krásné Březno quarter of Ústí nad Labem is escalating. The CPI Byty company, which owns the residential hotel, previously announced it would be shutting the building down today. Now the firm has posted a letter to the tenants on a bulletin board there informing them that unless they move out by 19:00 CET today, the company will intervene against them tomorrow morning.  full story

Canada: Why are the Hungarian Roma fleeing to Canada?

Canada, 31.1.2013 13:25, (ROMEA) The situation of the Roma in Hungary is indisputable very difficult and the reasons to leave the country are obvious. The discrimination of Roma takes place very publicly. This month there was a demonstration against the governing party because of anti-Romani commentaries. And also the living standards do not fulfill human right standards. But why do they choose Canada? A flight to Canada is about 1000 $ so it is very difficult for the Roma to get there, in fact they have to sell everything they own and that is not a lot.  full story

Merkel: Hitler came to power 80 years ago because most Germans were quiet

Berlin, 30.1.2013 17:21, (ROMEA) Speaking today at the opening of an exhibition on the occasion of the anniversary of the rise of Adolf Hitler and his regime to power, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Nazism took power 80 years ago because most Germans stayed silent. She called that experience a warning for today's generation and called for the promotion of democracy, freedom, and human rights.  full story

Romani author and painter Ceija Stojka has passed away

Vienna, Austria, 30.1.2013 2:05, (ROMEA) The author and painter Ceija Stojka passed away on Monday, 28 January 2013 in a hospital in Vienna. She would have turned 80 in May. Her death was confirmed on Tuesday, 29 January 2013 by her editor, Karin Berger.  full story

Housing for the poor a social time bomb in Czech Republic

Czech Republic, 29.1.2013 22:50, (ROMEA) The situation of the poorest people in this country is critical and neither municipalities nor the state are resolving it. There is no work for them, no equal education for them, and not enough dignified housing for them. A social time bomb is ticking here. Once it explodes, municipal and state representatives will "wash their hands of it" and make alibistic statements, as they always do on such occasions. The atmosphere in society is set for asocial behavior on the part of politicians. Poor people, including Romani people living in the ghettos, are indiscriminately considered parasites feeding off of the rest of us.  full story

Czech nonprofits: Some evicted families have been housed in Ústí

Ústí nad Labem, 29.1.2013 17:21, (ROMEA) The housing situation in Ústí nad Labem is critical, just as it is in other places throughout the Czech Republic. People are gradually moving out of the Předlice quarter there, where structural engineers say almost 30 buildings are now defective. For the time being this concerns a building on Beneše Lounského street which has been neglected by its owner and labeled unfit for human habitation by a structural engineer, but people will be moving out of the other buildings there in future.  full story

Czech Republic: Adopted son of Romani singer Věra Bílá found dead

Rokycany, 29.1.2013 1:23, (ROMEA) The 33-year-old adopted son of Romani singer Věra Bílá passed away this afternoon in the Czech town of Rokycany. His body was found in a public toilet. Police are investigating the cause of his death and have ordered an autopsy. News server iDNES.cz reports that the singer has confirmed the news and believes that someone murdered her adopted son František.  full story

Commentary: Czech Residency Bans will solve nothing

Litvínov, 29.1.2013 0:43, (ROMEA) Almost anything at all can be imagined as falling under the concept of democracy, and many of us are somehow prevented from understanding what kind of power we all acquired here in November 1989. Most of us have a basic problem with the very definition of democracy. It is, therefore, easily understandable why today's functionaries do not have to distance themselves from previous totalitarian practices, which seem democratic and excusable to us today, at least under their definition of democracy. The truth is that the achievement of real democracy is very complex, and navigating it is too complicated. Our society is not prepared for complications - or better said, it is not capable of compromise.  full story

On-line reporting of demonstration against evictions

Prague, 28.1.2013 23:52, (ROMEA) A new initiative called "Housing for All" (Bydlení pro všechny) has arisen in response to the ongoing scandal in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem, where people where evicted from a building that was unfit for human habitation because the owner let it deteriorate and are now unable to find any normal, permanent housing. Starting at 14:00 CET a protest action took place in front of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in Prague. News server Romea.cz followed the demonstration on-line in real time.  full story