Czech Republic

Most Czech regions uninterested in subsidizing lunches for impoverished children, some because they would be Romani

26.6.2016 20:37 For some time the numbers of children living in families who are in material distress has been rising in the Czech Republic, including the numbers of families who cannot afford to sign their children up for lunch at school. Even though ministries, nonprofit organizations, and Regional Authorities are aiding such children financially, the available money is not reaching all who need it.  full story

Czech Republic: Extremists sentenced to almost 7 years in prison for arson attack

26.6.2016 16:18 Tomáš Kopecký and Michal Poláček, the men responsible for an arson attack on a residential hotel occupied by Romani people in the Czech town of Aš, will serve six years and nine months in prison. The High Court in Prague sentenced them on 22 June for racially-motivated attempted murder and reckless endangerment.  full story

Czech media analysis warns of pro-Kremlin websites: Dangerous propaganda and unfair reporting

25.6.2016 12:39 Pro-Kremlin websites in the Czech Republic, primarily the online tabloid Parlamentní listy, are exploiting sophisticated methods for manipulating public opinion that break all the rules of professional journalism. Those are the results of an analysis performed by political scientists at Masaryk University with the support of the European Values think tank.  full story

Czech President calls DSSS party neo-Nazis, they say he parrots them on issue of migrants

23.6.2016 7:00 Speaking at the commemorative ceremony marking the anniversary of the obliteration of the village of Lidice during the Second World War, Czech President Miloš Zeman
warned against neo-Nazism, saying that it is inconspicuously beginning to threaten Czech society. His remarks on 11 June marked the 74th anniversary of the annihilation of the village by Nazi soldiers and specifically mentioned the members of the Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS) in the Czech Republic and the ultra-right party led by Marian Kotleba in Slovakia, calling them both neo-Nazis.  full story

Czech-language internet users, Roma included, fall for debunked hoax about mass wedding of adults and children

22.6.2016 7:33 A long-debunked hoax about an alleged wedding between 450 little girls and adult men has been spreading online once more in the Czech Republic. This particular hoax was first spread in 2009.  full story

When words fall on stony soil and hearts harden in the face of injustice: On coercive sterilisation and social theatre

16.6.2016 11:14 In Czechoslovakia coercive sterilisation policies primarily targeted groups that were considered a threat to the public health of society. Romani women were among these targeted groups, and over a period of almost thirty years, hundreds of Romani women were either sterilised without their knowledge, or unduly pressured by doctors and social workers to ‘consent’ to sterilisation. It was a bitter and cruel historical twist that Czechoslovakia launched its eugenic program focused on limiting the reproductive capacities of its ‘problematic’ groups in the early 1970s, just when Sweden finally chose to abolish its coercive sterilisation policies. Sweden had the unsavoury distinction of being the first country to introduce eugenic laws in the 1930s, even before Nazi Germany or fascist Italy. Only in 1993 did Czech-Slovak authorities abolish such abusive state policies, but in the absence of any new comprehensive policy framework, the practice mushroomed and continued until early 2000.  full story

Czech broadcast regulator: Prima TV news creates a negative image of migration

14.6.2016 7:00 On 7 June the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) in the Czech Republic issued its statement on the manipulation of news broadcasts alleged to have been done by the Prima television station (news server Romea.cz is publishing the statement below in full translation). Council chair Ivan Krejčí said that an analysis of the news reporting by Prima from 24 August to 13 September 2015 has revealed several contentious moments in specific broadcasts that indicate a tendency to create a negative media image of the issue of migration.  full story

Czech court says property owner must give squatter representative the keys to the Klinika building, for now

13.6.2016 8:17 The Office for Government Representation for Property Affairs (ÚZSVM) in the Czech Republic must wait until the criminal justice authorities and the courts have completed their work and issued a decision in the proceedings that are open before taking any more steps regarding the building in the Žižkov quarter of Prague that is currently occupied by activists from the Autonomous Social Center Klinika. According to interim measures imposed by the court, the ÚZSVM is entitled to change the locks on the building but must still give the keys to the person who is borrowing it until the court cases are resolved.  full story

Czech judge sanctioned for articles about migrants in bad taste

12.6.2016 12:04 A disciplinary panel of the Supreme Administrative Court (Nejvyšší správní soud - NSS) has officially cautioned a judge in Liberec, Czech Republic, Miloš Zbránek, for publishing two articles online. According to the panel, both of the pieces depicted migrants and the staff of nonprofit organizations in a grossly defamatory and non-objective way that crosses the line of decency and good taste.  full story

Czech Republic: Anti-refugee hoax online after gas station attendants mistake Roma from Slovakia for "refugees"

10.6.2016 10:59 Employees of the Gold gas station near Mohelnice, Czech Republic are spreading a hoax about "refugees" online. When a bus full of Romani people heading back home to Slovakia after seasonal work harvesting hops in the Czech Republic stopped at their station, the attendants thought they were a group of "refugees".  full story

Elena Gorolová on forced sterilizations: We seek compensation, nobody will ever restore our motherhood

8.6.2016 18:33 "The financial compensation we seek is not everything. You can't buy your own child, you can't acquire what you've lost - the option of motherhood," Elena Gorolová, who has been fighting for 11 years for compensation for women who have been improperly sterilized in the former Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic, told news server iDNES.cz last week.  full story

Czech Republic: TV Prima defends its anti-refugee newscasts by referring to a non-existent broadcast regulator "decision"

7.6.2016 9:03 The FTV Prima company issued a press release last week reacting to information published by news server Hlídacípes.org ("Watchdog") that the station management
instructed newsroom producers to present refugees as a crisis, problem, and threat. In its own main news broadcasts on the issue, Prima has told its viewers that the
station has been facing a campaign based on what they are calling a "manipulated" audio recording of the meeting where the instructions were given.  full story

Czech Republic: TV Prima managers caught on tape telling reporters to "obey orders" about how to report on refugees

4.6.2016 12:34 On Monday, 30 May, the organization HlídacíPes.org ("Watchdog") published essential information about the fact that the management of TV Prima instructed its news
reporters last year to always present the topic of refugees as a crisis, problem and threat. The station has since responded, calling the information mere speculation.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani women forced to undergo sterilization tell their stories through theater

3.6.2016 18:00 A theatrical production called "Stories That (Never) Began" ("Příběhy, které (ne)začaly") telling the stories of several women who were forced to undergo sterilization will be created at the Cooltour multifunctional space in Ostrava next week. Women who have survived such abuses will create the performance under the direction of theatrical professionals.  full story

Czech Republic: Broadcasting regulator suddenly lost its quorom when vote was taken on Prima's coverage of refugees

2.6.2016 10:35 At its session on 19 April, the Council on Radio and Television Broadcasting in the Czech Republic addressed an agenda item regarding a reportage broadcast about Christian refugees from Iraq. According to the complaint submitted, the Prima television station manipulated the information it broadcast.  full story

Czech Republic: Prima TV station told reporters to depict refugees as a risk and a threat or they would be fired

31.5.2016 13:31 The Czech NGO HlídacíPes.org ("Watchdog") has testimonies from several sources inside Prima TV stating that the television station's management gave producers there clear instructions during a meeting on 7 September 2015 about what angle to take toward the refugee "crisis" in its news reporting. The station's reporting on the issue took center stage this spring because of how it chose to report on the arrival of Christian refugees from Iraq to the Czech Republic.  full story

Czech Interior Minister suing City of Prague over opinion on gallows at demonstration

29.5.2016 10:52 The Office of the Municipal Department of Prague 1 did not make an error when it failed to assess the presence of a mock-up of a gallows during a demonstration against migration last year as constituting a misdemeanor, according to Prague City Hall, which has now reviewed the appeal of that Prague 1 decision filed by Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD), who says he will now file an administrative lawsuit over City Hall's decision. Chovanec says he believes threatening people with a gallows in public must not be allowed to be considered legal.  full story

Czech Republic: Another bomb threat against the Klinka Social Center, police search building without evacuating it

29.5.2016 10:35 On 27 May an anonymous e-mailer threatened to detonate a bomb at the Klinika Autonomous Social Center in the Žižkov quarter of Prague for the third time in seven days. Klinika activists reported the threat on their Facebook profile.  full story

Czech Republic's well-loved RefuFest begins in Prague

27.5.2016 23:40 RefuFest, a favorite festival in the Czech capital, began today. The 11th annual multicultural gathering will last until the end of next week.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani members of LEV 21 party disapprove of it partnering with ultra-right in fall elections

27.5.2016 22:28 On 25 May, the National Socialists-LEV 21 party announced it would be holding a press conference to announce its collaboration with the Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS), an idea that was first announced during the 1 May demonstration by the DSSS in Ústí nad Labem this year. In addition to Petr Benda, a former MP and former chair of the North Bohemian cell of the Czech Social Democratic Party, who is currently vice-chair, Tomáš Vandas, the chair of the extremist DSSS, was scheduled to attend the press conference.  full story