Extended search

Spiegel: Rhetoric of the extreme right in Hungary has hit rock bottom

Budapest, Hungary, 3.12.2012 17:17, (ROMEA) Czech Radio has published a translation from German into Czech of an article published online by the German magazine Speigel about the ultra-right in Hungary. The magazine reports that Hungarian MP Márton Gyöngyösi of the extreme-right party "Movement for a Better Hungary" (Jobbik) declared last week in parliament that since citizens of Jewish origin pose a "security risk", a nationwide list of them should be compiled. "His statements prompted an enormous wave of indignation, but the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán distanced itself from the MP very slowly," Spiegel reports.  full story

Czech tabloid asks singers about photo of them giving the Nazi salute

Prague, 3.12.2012 16:04, (ROMEA) The Sunday edition of the Blesk tabloid in the Czech Republic reports that it has managed to acquire photographs of the stars who hosted this year's "Český slavík" (Czech Nightingale) awards ceremony, Lucie Bílá (46) and Daniel Landa (44), giving the Nazi salute. The snapshot is said to be an unaltered original and can be seen at http://www.blesk.cz/clanek/celebrity/186516/lucie-bila-a-daniel-landa-proc-jsme-hajlovali.html  full story

Czech Senator Tomio Okamura's antigypsy words of wisdom

Prague, 2.12.2012 20:43, (ROMEA) It is simply not possible to put together a list of all of Tomio Okamura's immortal remarks. News server Aktuálně.cz tried publishing a selection of the raciest of them recently. We at Romea.cz borrowed some of those and added others so as not to deprive our readers of the experience of following the words of this senator who claims he is neither populist, nor racist, nor xenophobic.  full story

Prague conference notes progress on Holocaust restitution

Prague, 1.12.2012 19:43, (ROMEA) First Deputy Foreign Minister Jiří Schneider and Stuart Eizenstat, an adviser to the US Government on Holocaust questions, told journalists in Prague Thursday that an international conference assessing the options for the return of property stolen during the Holocaust has noted general progress on the issue of restitution. However, Eizenstat and Schneider believe the correction of wrongs committed during the Nazi era is not yet over and there is a need to accelerate the restitution given the advanced age of the victims.  full story

Czech "practical schools" won't close, petition is causing hysteria

Prague, 30.11.2012 23:20, (ROMEA) News server Aktuálně.cz reports that tens of thousands of people have signed a petition against closing the "practical primary schools" that was delivered to representatives of the Czech Education Ministry last Friday. The actual situation is much less dramatic than the sensation stirred up around the alleged closure of the "practical primary schools". Both the Czech Government and the ministry say they are counting on such schools continuing to exist.  full story

Czech ministries, municipal govt pass the buck on Přednádraží street

Ostrava, 30.11.2012 17:20, (ROMEA) The ProAlt Ostrava organization and the SOS Přednádraží collective have issued the following press release, which news server Romea.cz publishes in full translation below:  full story

Czech Radio: Businesses get rich on residential hotels for the poor

Ústí nad Labem, 30.11.2012 1:10, (ROMEA) Czech Radio has reported that the business dealings of those who own the residential hotels that charge disproportionately high fees for single rooms, often featuring showers and toilets located in common hallways and restrictions on who can visit their guests, could easily be called trafficking in poverty. The owners of these businesses rely on the fact that their clients are people who cannot find normal rental housing and that the state will contribute toward paying their bills. For most people living in such places, they are the last resort when fleeing the ghetto.  full story

Slovaks selling land cheap to Romani settlement residents

Slovakia, 30.11.2012 0:26, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that the Slovaks are contemplating what to do with illegal Romani settlements in their country. One such settlement is in the village of Krásnohorské Podhradie, where part of the land is owned by neo-Nazi Marián Kotleba, who has threatened to demolish all of the small Romani homes currently on his property. Now Erika Gažiková, a member of the Romani community there, made enough extra money gathering berries and mushrooms this summer to purchase the land around her home in the Romani settlement from the village, as have other Romani residents.  full story

Prague 5 dead set on closing integrated school no matter the cost

Prague, 29.11.2012 22:19, (ROMEA) By all indications, the Grafická Primary School in the Smíchov quarter of Prague is well on its way to becoming one of only a few institutions in the country where inclusive education is not only practiced daily, but is accepted and supported by the faculty, parents and pupils themselves. The Prague 5 Municipal Department now wants to close the school.  full story

Czech Republic: Open letter from Romani evacuees in usurious residential hotel

Ústí nad Labem, Předlice, 29.11.2012 16:49, (ROMEA) The situation in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem is becoming unsustainable. The first people have been evacuated from the Předlice quarter there and the same fate probably awaits others. The town itself is mostly to blame for the situation, as it sold buildings in the quarter to private owners, some of who have no interest in maintaining them. As some residents have informed news server Romea.cz, some of the buildings probably belong to banks by now because their owners have defaulted on loans using the buildings as collateral. Structural engineers have found flaws in almost 30 buildings in the Předlice quarter, so more evacuations may lie ahead.  full story

Romani activist seeks seat on Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

Prague, 29.11.2012 16:32, (ROMEA) Čeněk Růžička, the chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu) is one of the candidates for a seat on the board of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů - ÚSTR). The Czech Senate will choose the institute's board members during a session in December. A total of 33 candidates have applied.  full story

Hungary: Jobbik MP wants to compile a list of Jewish politicians

Budapest, Hungary, 29.11.2012 1:46, (ROMEA) An MP with the chauvinist (radical nationalist) political formation called Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) has declared in the Hungarian Parliament that he wants to create a list of Jewish MPs and members of the cabinet. His proposal was condemned by the Hungarian Government. The international Raoul Wallenberg Foundation has also protested against it.  full story

Czech EdMin wants zero non-disabled children in "practical primary schools"

Prague, 29.11.2012 1:28, (ROMEA) The Czech Education Ministry wants to prevent non-disabled, socially disadvantaged children from studying in the "practical primary schools" alongside children with mental disabilities. During the next two years, the ministry is preparing to introduce several measures into practice to prevent such enrollments. Those measures concern pupils' records, the methods used to evaluate "practical primary school" candidates, and the establishment of preparatory classes at such schools. The ministry is responding to a five-year-old judgment from the European Court of Human Rights which found 18 Romani pupils had been unjustifiably enrolled into what were previously called "special schools" in the Czech Republic.  full story

Czech Republic: Parents protest closure of integrated school in Prague

Prague, 29.11.2012 0:23, (ROMEA) The parents of pupils attending the Grafická Primary School are protesting the plan of the Prague 5 municipal government to close it. In an open letter, the parents write that they greatly value that the school's environment produces "trouble-free collaboration between majority-population pupils and Romani pupils there. Our children get along nicely together, which is not at all usual in today's society... In recent years, pupils who were inappropriately enrolled into 'practical primary schools', even though their intellect did not require such enrollment, have managed to relocate here. These pupils, with the kind and meticulous support of their educators, have successfully handled the difficult transition back to the curriculum of a regular primary school." The parents are demanding that Prague 5 review its decision to close the school.  full story

Czech Senator Gajdůšková: Everyone must receive the same opportunity!

Prague, 28.11.2012 17:16, (ROMEA) I recently convened a round table in the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the European Court of Human Rights handing down its judgment in the case of D.H. and others versus the Czech Republic. In November 2007, the court ruled that the "practical primary schools" (previously called the "special schools") in our country were disadvantaging Romani children.  full story

More than 40 future Roma professionals receive academic scholarships

Praha, 28.11.2012 11:09, (ROMEA) At 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 29, Prague’s theater D 21 will host a mid-afternoon gala to recognize Romani university students who won scholarships from the Roma Education Fund (REF) for the academic year 2012/2013. In its thirteenth year, the Roma Memorial University Scholarship Program (RMUSP) supports 44 Romani students in the Czech Republic in 2012 and has spent well over two million Euros on scholarships across the region since its establishment.
 full story

Slovakia: Romani people can neither stay nor go

Slovakia, 27.11.2012 16:51, (ROMEA) The Slovak daily Sme reports that a group of Romani people in eastern Slovakia has found themselves in an absurd situation. The Košice town hall evicted them from an illegal settlement and helped them move to the remote village of Rakúsa - where the mayor has now sent them straight back to Košice.  full story

Fundamental Rights Agency: Hate crimes a reality in the EU

Prague, 27.11.2012 16:44, (ROMEA) The EU Fundamental Rights Agency has issued the following press release:  full story

Czech EdMin plan for implementing the D.H. judgment

Prague, 27.11.2012 16:01, (ROMEA) The Czech Education Ministry has issued the following press release, which news server Romea.cz presents here in translation:  full story

Commentary: "Yuck, the gypsies touched that!"

Prague, 27.11.2012 0:31, (ROMEA) "Yuck, the gypsies touched that!“ The cry came from the mother of a two-year-old infant. Startled, he burst into tears. He had taken an interest in something on top of a concrete trashcan on the square of a North Bohemian town. The first instruction to leave the trashcan alone didn't end his fascination - he seemed not to have understood it.  full story