Commentary

Jana Šedivcová: Are all Czech children cat killers and all Romani children flamingo killers? Collective blame is unacceptable

17.3.2017 15:03 When I heard the news that children had killed one rare flamingo and seriously harmed another at the zoo in Jihlava, it made me dizzy. I felt the same when, the next day, a video appeared "on the net" of other children in another town who almost killed a cat by hanging it.  full story

Patrik Banga: I'm for collecting ethnic data in all areas, but the majority can't tell who is Romani

17.3.2017 10:17 Ivan Langr (Greens), Vice-Mayor of Liberec in charge of social affairs, has rebelled against the methodology recommended for estimating the number of Romani people in the regions that he has received from the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic. As has already happened here more than once, Langr has sparked a tempestuous
discussion about whether estimating the numbers of Romani people should even happen and if so, what the appropriate method is to use.  full story

Czech Republic: NGO disagrees with court that principal discriminated against Romani preschoolers

11.3.2017 10:45 The Life Together (Vzájemné soužití) organization has issued a statement of support for the principal of the Pěší Primary School in Ostrava-Muglinova which, according to a judgment by the District Court in Ostrava, discriminated against two Romani preschoolers when it refused to enroll them into first grade in 2014. The organization disagrees with the court that principal Kamil Krahula behaved in a discriminatory fashion when making that decision.  full story

Commentary: Czech tabloid continues its anti-inclusion campaign

24.2.2017 9:46 At a time when we are facing so-called "alternative facts" (or untruths) more and more frequently in the public discourse, correcting the record appears to become more and more of a Sisyphean task. Long before the term "alternative facts" was used by an adviser to the US President, we here in the Czech Republic have been facing a textbook example of how facts and information are handled this way by the media.  full story

Stano Daniel: We need to rescue dogs from Slovakia's settlements but not humans?

23.2.2017 9:48 A stereotypical image of a Romani settlement is that many dogs live there. There are known cases of doctors, postal workers or social workers being afraid to visit the settlements because of the dogs.  full story

Michal Mižigár: Dža Devleha, Schapiro!

8.2.2017 7:09 Dža Devleha, or "be with God", is what is said in the Romanes language to somebody who is departing. On Friday, 20 January, the Ambassador of the United States of America to the Czech Republic, Andrew H. Schapiro, ended his term.  full story

Stano Daniel: Fico's the "gypsy", I am a Rom

3.2.2017 9:12 Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico spoke about Romani people as "Gypsies" during a debate Sunday broadcast by the TA3 news station. He made his remarks in connection with the fact that businesses in Slovakia are having a problem finding employees.  full story

Commentary: Too soon to assess inclusive reforms in education

9.1.2017 7:57 The number of Romani pupils being educated with assessments of "mild mental disability" remains essentially the same this year as it did last year. Current data from the Czech Education Ministry basically confirm the previous findings from enrollments into first grade regarding the reassigment of children from the former "practical schools" into mainstream ones - namely, that no massive transfers of pupils have happened.  full story

Renáta Kováčová: Tragic death in UK of two Romani girls from Czech Republic sparks horrible online commentary

4.1.2017 7:30 Most of us have probably heard about the tragedy that happened on New Year's Eve in Great Britain when a driver ran into two young girls from the Czech Republic and then left the scene without providing them first aid. One girl died on the spot and the other also succumbed to her injuries later.  full story

Richard Samko on receiving the 2016 Roma Spirit Award: Give Romani people a chance!

15.12.2016 20:18 On Saturday 10 December 2016, Human Rights Day, I received the Roma Spirit Award in the category of Media. I would like to once again thank everybody who nominated me.  full story

Commentary: Online social networks censor photos of Syrian war, ignore dissemination of hatred

7.12.2016 13:14 Recently Facebook covered over a couple of photographs on my profile with a grey rectangle because they were not appropriate for children. One photo, from wartime Aleppo, showed the corpse of a child with his leg bent at a right angle at the tibia and other corpses mutilated by a bomb explosion after an attack by Assad's army and the Russians.  full story

Commentary on eviction in Slovakia: A rational society does not make a profit from or save money on the poor

3.12.2016 9:48 Roughly one month ago, in the city of Žilina, Slovakia, an apartment building on Bratislavská Street was evacuated with the assistance of police and subsequently demolished. Its approximately 120 occupants, including 58 children, were moved into a nearby gym for a couple of days.  full story

Michal Mižigár: Inclusion is an opportunity for a better life

2.12.2016 20:38 Last month we marked the ninth anniversary of the victorious "D.H." judgment at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in which 18 Romani people from Ostrava who had been unjustifiably reassigned to what were then called "special schools" saw justice done and defended their right to a quality education. I would like to share a story with you about why it is important for all children to have equal access to education.  full story

Radoslav Banga: I walked out of the Czech music awards because Nazism does not belong in public life

28.11.2016 7:58 On Saturday night I left the hall of the theater in Karlín very, very indignantly. Yes, it's true, my wife and I got up during the "Czech Nightingale" awards ceremony, began to whistle, and then left to protest against the award won by the band Ortel.  full story

Former Czech Human Rights Minister: PM is abandoning the fight against poverty

25.11.2016 19:05 Czech Television has focused very carefully and in detail on the past eight years of efforts to achieve social inclusion in the Czech Republic in a recent installment of its 90' program. Together with the current director of the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion, Radek Jiránek, I was briefly involved in the program's very cultivated, expert debate of this issue, but as I was traveling back home, I was overcome by the concern that the time for this kind of effective, substantive policy for the fight against poverty, which actually will save our money and that of future generations, has already passed.  full story

Karel Holomek: Czech Gov't Roma Council has a new chair after cabinet reshuffle

16.11.2016 17:31 Czech Prime Minister Sobotka has replaced two of his ministers, Health Minister Svatopluk Němeček and Human Rights and Legislation Minister Jiří Dienstibier, who was also the chair of the Czech Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs. The newly-appointed Human Rights Minister is the lawyer and Social Democratic MP Jan Chvojka.  full story

Commentary: Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day in the Czech Republic after still-unexplained death of Romani man

14.11.2016 18:53 After the incident in Žatec it is hard for me to write, for many reasons. Thanks to my work with the "theater of the oppressed" I have relatively a lot of friends in the Romani community linked to my Facebook profile, so from afar I am following what is going on with them, and I must say it is not light reading.  full story

Commentary: The local dispute over "counting Roma"

11.11.2016 8:03 A very typical dispute about the "counting of Romani children" has exploded in the Czech towns of Krásná Lípa and Rumburk. Local media distortions are a part of it.  full story

Commentary: Why we need data about Romani pupils, and not only about them

10.11.2016 6:39 "The discussion of the collection of sensitive data in the schools, i.e., data about disability or ethnicity, has been connected in the Czech Republic exclusively with tracking the number of Romani pupils," Štěpán Drahokoupil of the Open Society Foundation Prague writes in a commentary first published by the news server "Česká škola" (Czech School).  full story

Commentary: Trump won. Should we admire him?

9.11.2016 12:31 Donald Trump has won the election. His purposeful efforts, worthy of a successful businessman, have become the symbol of today.  full story