World

Slovak Police investigating suspicions of vote-buying in Romani settlements

15.3.2016 17:49 Police in Slovakia are investigating whether vote-buying has occurred in two Romani settlements in eastern Slovakia, where two lesser-known candidates for the governing party Směr-Sociální Demokracie (Direction-Social Democracy - Směr-SD), Peter Chudík and Stanislav Kubánek, won many more preferential votes than Slovak PM Robert Fico, the party's chair and most popular politician. Parliamentary elections were held in Slovakia more than a week ago.  full story

videoVideo footage shows recently-elected Slovak MP attacking Arab family including children last year

14.3.2016 18:41 Milan Mazurek (age 22) is a violent racist who will be seated in the Slovak Parliament on behalf of Marian Kotleba's fascist party, the People's Party Our Slovakia (Lidová strana Naše Slovensko - LSNS), as was documented last year when he vulgarly shouted at an Arab family with children who were being protected by police officers when extremists began throwing rocks at them during an anti-immigrant demonstration in Bratislava. Mazurek will be seated instead of the originally-elected LSNS candidate, who has had to give up his Parliamentary seat because he is being prosecuted for having assaulted a dark-skinned foreign national in 2014.  full story

Germany: Neo-Nazis and populists march in Berlin waving fake Third Reich flags and those of Russia

13.3.2016 0:46 Almost 3 000 right-wing extremists and populists marched through the center of Berlin today to express their disagreement with the German Government's migration policy and more than 1 000 people turned out to counter-protest them. Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reports that smaller clashes occurred with police when approximately 200 people attempted to blockade the extremists' march.  full story

UK: It is a crime to curse someone for being English

12.3.2016 20:52 Allusions to someone's origin or religion can be considered racist in Great Britain. A court in the town of Hull has recently found a man guilty for using the term "English" to insult a traffic warden during an argument over a parking ticket.  full story

Austria: Arson attacks against Romani families from Romania

11.3.2016 20:38 Unidentified perpetrators set fire to the tents of Romani families from Romania in the Upper Austrian city of Linz at the beginning of March. Fortunately, no one was injured in that incident.  full story

UN Committee tells Czech Republic: Compensate victims of forced sterilization and punish those responsible

11.3.2016 17:49 For the purpose of improving the position of women in the Czech Republic, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued its Concluding Observations to the Czech Republic on 7 March, based on the Czech Government's Sixth Periodic Report to the Committee on upholding the UN Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination against Women. A delegation from the Czech Republic defended that report before the Committee in Geneva on 23 February.  full story

Slovakia: Thousands protest Kotleba and clerical fascism in Bratislava

7.3.2016 23:40 Slovak Police say more than 1 000 people assembled today in the center of Bratislava before marching through the streets of the capital to protest the ultra-right party of Marian Kotleba, the People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS), which scored gains in parliamentary elections this past weekend. The march was gradually joined by others and organizers estimate it reached between 2 000 and 3 000 people by the time it ended.  full story

Czech Republic should consider Nazi electoral gains in Slovakia a warning

7.3.2016 22:12 The election results in Slovakia this past weekend have sparked a great deal of response beyond the country's borders and have been commented on by Czech politicians and by Czech and international media. The elections overall were won by the Social Democratic party of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, Směr–SD, but compared to the elections four years ago, that party has suffered significant losses in terms of its share of the electorate, and has lost its majority in the unicameral legislature.  full story

Slovakia: Romani soldier survives Afghanistan only to die after police intervention back home

26.2.2016 18:40 The Slovak courts are continuing to review the case of a 44-year-old professional soldier, Ivan Koliščák, who died in April 2013 after police intervened against him in a restaurant in the town of Trebišov. He died on the spot; emergency medical technicians called to the scene did not manage to revive him.  full story

videoCzech Government to answer questions about illegal sterilizations, mostly of Romani women, from UN Committee tomorrow

22.2.2016 23:10 Tomorrow, 23 February, a delegation from the Czech Republic will answer questions before the UN Committee for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The Czech Republic should inform the Committee of the steps it has taken for the purpose of fulfilling the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.  full story

Poland wants prison time for those who refer to Nazi-era camps as "Polish"

16.2.2016 18:48 The Polish Government wants to punish anyone using the expression "Polish extermination camp" when referring to the Nazi camps that were located in occupied Poland with up to five years in prison. The Polish Justice Ministry submitted a bill for that purpose to the Government today.  full story

Bulgaria: Romani "imam" arrested last year for allegedly joining the so-called Islamic State

5.2.2016 23:05 Islamist fundamentalists are attempting to exploit the situation of impoverished Romani people in the Balkans and the radical movement of the so-called Islamic State is actively recruiting them into its service. Darko Trifunović, the Serbian representative of the International Strategic Studies Association told news server setimes.com that the radicals want Romani people living in settlements in Bulgaria to replace their national minority identity with a religious one.  full story

Czech anti-racism initiative says assault on Syrian man caused by xenophobic atmosphere

4.2.2016 19:35 According to the anti-Fascists in the "No to Racism" Initiative, which is convening a demonstration in Prague this coming Saturday against hatred, the recently-reported assault on a Syrian man there is one consequence of the atmosphere being created by xenophobic movements in Czech society. "No to Racism" will be assembling to denounce such hatred.  full story

EXCLUSIVE: Romani figure skater Ivan Righini, three-time Italian champion, competes for the European Championship

27.1.2016 19:59 The 2016 European Figure Skating Championships begin today in Bratislava, Slovakia. At 17:30 CET, Ivan Righini, a figure skater with Italian, Romani and Russian roots, will compete for Italy in the men's short program with the starting number of 28.  full story

Slovakia: Three children burn to death in Romani settlement

25.1.2016 18:18 Three children died around in the early morning hours of Sunday in the Romani settlement in the municipality of Lomnička (Stará Ľubovňa district) in eastern Slovakia. A two-year-old boy, four-year-old boy and five-year-old girl tragically burned to death.  full story

Attila Balogh Hidvégi on serial murders in Hungary: Even brutal crimes did not spark Romani solidarity

19.1.2016 21:10 In connection with the recent verdict of the Hungarian Supreme Court upholding life sentences for three perpetrators of the serial murders of Romani people in Hungary and a 13-year sentence for their accomplice, news server Romea.cz is presenting in translation the following commentary by Romani journalist Attila Balogh Hidvégi who, according to his account, has followed this scandal intensively from the beginning and is completely, thoroughly familiar not just with the text of the indictment, but also with the events that occurred between the various hearings in the case. Hidvégi published his commentary on www.romnet.hu and we are reprinting it in translation here in a shortened form with their kind permission:  full story

Analysis: Hungarian court verdict upholding life sentences for racist murders has taken effect

17.1.2016 1:45 In Budapest on 12 January, Hungary's Supreme Court rejected an appeal from three men accused of having committed a series of racist attacks as members of an organized group from 2008-2009 in nine locations around the country resulting in six deaths and five seriously injured victims. Árpád Kiss, his brother István Kiss, and Zsolt Pető were convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while their accomplice István Csontos will go to prison for 13 years.  full story

videoHighest-paid Hungarian footballer of all time is Romani

14.1.2016 19:50 What has been suspected for several days has now been officially confirmed. Hungarian footballer Norbert Balogh will continue his career as a player in the highest Italian competition, the A Series, as a member of Palermo.  full story

Media image of Romani people in Slovakia: Generalizations and stereotypes

13.1.2016 23:06 The civic association Romano kher - Rómsky dom (Roma House) has produced an analysis of selected Slovak media outlets in collaboration with the Media Academy, focusing on those outlets that significantly contribute to creating the image of various minorities for the Slovak public. The survey monitored the period from the beginning of June to the end of October 2015.  full story

EU Justice Ministers call on Facebook to be stricter about removing hoaxes and threats

14.12.2015 20:20 The European Union's council of Member State Justice Ministers announced on 3 December that they are planning to jointly call on Facebook to be faster and stricter about removing hateful threats and hoaxes from the social networking site. "We are seriously debating this at the council of ministers. Here in the Czech Republic we are not very interesting [to Facebook] because we are a small market, and that is why we are doing our best to get Europe as a whole to agree to tell Facebook these matters need to be overseen," Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikán told news server Aktuálně.cz.  full story