Czech Republic

Review: Czech artist's "guide" to slumming in Brno's Romani neighborhood is a tasteless mockery

23.1.2017 8:12 "A Guide to the Brno Bronx - BRNOX - a Kateřina Šedá action" is the entire title of a publication that has recently sold out here in the Czech Republic. Its second subtitle (a Kateřina Šedá action) tells you all you need to know about what its real subject is.  full story

videoCzech Republic: Romani journalists in training visited excluded localities

22.1.2017 11:53 One component of the ROMEA organization's "Media Training for Future Romani Journalists" project last year was a three-day trip into the field. Thanks to our collaboration with the organization Český západ, the trainees had the opportunity to visit several socially excluded localities around Teplá and Toužim. While accumulating information for the articles they then wrote about the broadest possible range of subjects, the trainees also had the opportunity to rehearse fundamental
skills required to be television news reporters.  full story

Jozef Miker: It irritates me when Workers Party supporters recruit Roma against migrants

21.1.2017 16:17 Romani activist and volunteer Jozek Miker has given an interview to news server Romea.cz in which he explains why he has supported the Civil March for Aleppo, which is attempting to draw attention to the wartime conflict in Syria and the issue of refugee reception on the European continent. "The Roma have to see that when even we Roma are perceived as foreigners here, even after 700 years of coexistence, then [migrants] will logically be perceived as a foreign element here also," Miker said when explaining why he does not comprehend how some Romani people can reject migrants.  full story

Czech Police say threats to burn down ROMEA organization were not criminal

20.1.2017 20:50 The criminal report that the ROMEA organization filed at the beginning of December 2016 after a Facebook user threatened to burn down the organization's office has been shelved with the justification that it did not rise to the level of a felony. "The investigation undertaken did not ascertain facts from which it could reasonably be presumed that a felony had been perpetrated and justifying the beginning of prosecution under Section 158 paragraph 3 Criminal Code," reads the notification the organization received this week.  full story

Together We Can: David Tišer

18.1.2017 6:44 Romea.cz will be publishing interviews on a weekly basis with people who are doing interesting things to aid all of us in getting along here. When we were looking for a name for this column, the motto of this year's International Romani Day, "Together We Can", inspired me.  full story

Analysis: "Inadaptables get free apartments" - the Czech lie that kills

17.1.2017 11:50 The resistance of the ANO movement, the Christian Democrats, and the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) in the Czech Republic to social housing is based on fabrications that will have tangible consequences: People dying in the streets and broken families. The freezing temperatures falling to -20 C at night now form the backdrop to the coalition Government's tiffs over the planned law on social housing.  full story

Czech initiative says those in need of housing will not receive it unless law requires it

17.1.2017 8:59 The "Have a Home" (Mít svůj domov) initiative, which brings together more than 90 organizations working in the social sphere, resolutely rejects the Czech Government's proposal not to legally require municipalities to provide social housing in the Law on Social Housing now being drafted. The initiative says that if the law does not require municipalities to provide social housing for needy groups or create some other guarantee that aid will be provided by the state to those in need of housing, most of the 200 000 people now in need of housing will not be housed.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani Holocaust Memorial at Hodonín to open this summer

17.1.2017 7:49 The memorial to the Romani Holocaust at Hodonín u Kunštátu will open to visitors this summer. Trial operations should begin in July and the official opening will take place in August.  full story

Czech broadcast regulator: Prima TV's coverage of Iraqi refugees (and itself) broke the law

16.1.2017 9:35 Last year TV Prima broke the law through its news broadcasting about the integration of refugees from Iraq into the Czech Republic, according to the Council on Radio and Television Broadcasting (Rada pro rozhlasové a televizní vysílání - RRTV). A total of four news reports broadcast in its main news program, "FTV Prima News", were found to have manipulated viewers and to have not been objective.  full story

Czech broadcast authority says public television's news reporting on the US election broke the law

16.1.2017 8:35 Public broadcaster Czech Television broke the law in its November 2016 news broadcasts about election night in the United States of America, according to the Council on Radio and Television broadcasting (RRTV). Its broadcasting was imbalanced in favor of candidate Hillary Clinton and at the expense of Donald Trump, the RRTV announced in a press release on 12 January.  full story

Czech coalition Government reaches agreement on social housing, will the law pass?

16.1.2017 7:56 The parties in the Czech governing coalition met on Thursday, 12 January and agreed that the law on social housing will not create a new central office to administer such housing, as Labor and Social Affairs Minister Michaela Marksová (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) proposed before Christmas, and that municipal involvement in the system will also be voluntary. Vice-chair of the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) Jan Bartošek said the law would make possible a pilot program and if municipalities do not voluntarily step up, they will be obligated to provide social housing through an amendment to the law.  full story

Czech Interior Minister and President disagree about disinformation unit

16.1.2017 6:43 Czech President Miloš Zeman and Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) met last week but were unable to find a common position on the new unit that has been focused on fighting disinformation since the beginning of the year. Zeman is convinced the staffers of the new department are incapable of detecting actual disinformation.  full story

Romani family files complaint against Czech investigation of death

13.1.2017 17:13 The family of Miroslav Demeter, who died on 18 October 2016 at a pizzeria in the Czech town of Žatec under still-unclarified circumstances, has filed a complaint against the district State Prosecutor's Office in Louny. The bereaved are convinced, by the course of the investigation to date, that the police are not investigating the case thoroughly because the deceased was dependent on drugs.
 full story

Czech historian gets death threats after saying migration is a natural phenomenon

13.1.2017 7:35 News server Lidovky.cz reports that Charles University's Faculty of Arts issued a statement on 10 January publicly backing one of its academics, Matěj Spurný, an historian and specialist in modern nationalism and the history of modern European dictatorships. He became the target of death threats and racist abuse on online social networks after giving an interview to Týden magazine about migration at the beginning of January.  full story

Carmen Russo: The Fight For a Better Future. Battling Racism in Czech Schools

12.1.2017 12:15 A small group of American interns at The New Presence office were exploring the answer to a seemingly difficult question: Why are some Czechs so outwardly racist?  full story

Czech Deputy Ombudsman: We cannot treat people as individuals

12.1.2017 7:44 "Human rights and security are communicating vessels. A person who is not secure is not free. The degree of danger that is now being felt in Europe must have an influence on how human rights are conceived of," the lawyer and Deputy Ombudsman Stanislav Křeček has said in an interview for the Czech magazine RESPEKT.  full story

Czech Republic: Investigation into Romani man's death continues as interethnic gulf widens

11.1.2017 7:13 Last fall was marked for thousands of Romani people in the Czech Republic by the mysterious, still-unclarified death of a young man, Miroslav Demeter, in a pizzeria in Žatec. During 20 demonstrations and memorial assemblies around the country and abroad, Romani people took to the streets with the aim of expressing their opinion that the case must be properly investigated.  full story

Albín Balát: The curious New Year's maneuvers of the Czech Police

10.1.2017 9:48 Recently photographs and video footage have been appearing on online social networking sites showing various interventions by the Czech Police. These amateur photos and recordings have been viewed several thousand times.  full story

Social housing law sparks dispute between ministers for ANO and Czech Social Democrats

10.1.2017 7:36 On 24 November 2016, the demolition of two dilapidated prefabricated apartment buildings at the Chanov housing estate in the Czech town of Most was begun in the presence of Czech Regional Development Minister Karla Šlechtová (ANO) (pictured above) and the Mayor of Most, Jan Paparega. The town is one of the successful applicants for subsidies from a program financing the demolition of decrepit buildings offered by the Regional Development Ministry.  full story

Poll shows 71 % of Czechs support adoption of a social housing law

9.1.2017 9:35 The Platform for Social Housing reports that most Czechs believe a law should exist establishing an obligation for municipalities to maintain a certain number of social apartments to offer to citizens in need of housing. Those are the findings of a representative public opinion poll implemented by the MEDIAN agency for the Association of the Child and Family and the Platform for Social Housing.  full story