Features and Commentary

Čeněk Růžička: We can fight back if necessary, but what about our children? Go vote!

Prague, 23.10.2013 0:05, (ROMEA) Romale, I presume you are all noticing how a large proportion of the political candidates are speaking about us in the television debates, how so-called experts on Romani people are proposing solutions for our lives. Notice how almost all of those solutions call for forceful measures - we're going to increase the numbers of police officers in the streets, hire police assistants, introduce CCTV systems in troubled localities.  full story

Czech Green Party candidate Czeslaw Walek: Romani topics have long been ignored

Prague, 21.10.2013 23:58, (ROMEA) The collaboration between the Green Party (Strana zelených - SZ) and the Equal Opportunities Party (Strana rovných příležitostí - SRP) is the most significant offer to be made to a "Romani" party in the Czech Republic since 1990. The Greens have long focused on the topic of inter-ethnic coexistence and related questions and have also protested manifestations of racism.  full story

Burianská (SRP), Romani candidate to the Czech lower house: Roma are running to speak out

Vítkov, 19.10.2013 19:00, (ROMEA) An unusually high number of Romani people are running in this year's early elections compared to years past. The monthly Romano voďi, published by the ROMEA association, has done its best to interview all the candidates running for the lower house and will run those interviews in addition to publishing analytical material about the elections.  full story

Horváth (Změna), Roma candidate to the Czech lower house: I have a recipe for improving coexistence

Děčín, 12.10.2013 1:06, (ROMEA) An unusually high number of Romani people are running in this year's early elections compared to years past. The monthly Romano voďi, published by the ROMEA association, has done its best to interview all the candidates running for the lower house and will run those interviews in addition to publishing analytical material about the elections.  full story

Čeněk Růžička (SRP): We are counting on the Roma vote

Prague, 9.10.2013 23:02, (ROMEA) An unusually high number of Romani people are running in this year's early elections compared to years past. The monthly Romano voďi, published by the ROMEA association, has done its best to interview all the candidates running for the lower house and will run those interviews in addition to publishing analytical material about the elections.  full story

Czech anti-racist activist Barbora Antonová: Politicians won't condemn racist violence

Brno, 12.9.2013 21:13, (ROMEA) A Brno-based initiative of people opposed to right-wing extremism has called on influential personalities and politicians to clearly express their positions on the current wave of anti-Roma sentiment in the Czech Republic. The initiative is publishing those opinions on the "Nic než názor" (Nothing but Opinion) website, the name of which in Czech is a parody of the right-wing extremist slogan "Nic než národ" ("Nothing but the nation").  full story

Analysis: Vítkov a day of absurdity, dialogue, paradoxes and reciprocity

Vítkov, 4.8.2013 19:50, (ROMEA) A park on Husova Street, a residential hotel on Opavská Street, and Jan Zajíc Square, where those attending an anti-Romani march assembled: These are three places in Vítkov where people gathered yesterday because they did not like the fact that several locals, together with neo-Nazis, were demonstrating in the town where the worst-ever arson attack against Romani people in this country took place four years ago. Recently it has become a common phenomenon that people from civil society, Romani people included, are starting to wake up, to raise up their heads, and to notice what people other than themselves need.  full story

Robert Rustem: Le Point’s editor should resign after ‘Hitler and the Roma’ poll stunt

Brussels, 26.7.2013 11:19, (ROMEA) With breath-taking speed, Europe moves from one ugly episode to the next in its summer rampage against Roma people.  full story

Valeriu Nicolae: Blacklisted – the new low of the European Commission

Bucharest, 26.7.2013 10:33, (ROMEA) Last week a close friend told me that the European Commission blacklisted the NGO she works for. I used to work for the same NGO in the past. The members of the network are people I know for a long time- people I am proud to have worked with- committed and hardworking.  full story

Gwendolyn Albert: Zimmerman verdict is about living in fear

USA, 23.7.2013 12:41, (ROMEA) The verdict of “not guilty” in the trial of George Zimmerman the weekend before last was extremely disheartening for millions of Americans, as indeed the entire drama has been. In order to understand why it was possible for Zimmerman to shoot unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in the heart and be legally absolved of wrongdoing by his claim of self-defense, we need to understand where the law that has spared him the designation of “murderer” came from.  full story

Patrik Banga: Violence should not be minimized, but "Čhikatar het" action deserves praise overall

Prague, 28.6.2013 17:17, (ROMEA) This commentary was first published in Czech on Monday, 24 June 2013. For reporting on the incidents it refers to, please see http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-republic-anti-roma-demonstrations-tomorrow-in-duchcov-over-assault and
http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-republic-injuries-after-dsss-provokes-street-warfare-in-duchcov-police-use-tear-gas-and-water-cannon  full story

Commentary: Let's distance ourselves from Roma who give us a bad reputation

Prague, 8.6.2013 19:09, (ROMEA) What do you think the effect is of headlines like the following: “Roma commit another brutal attack: 12-year-old boy beaten with sticks in Duchcov!" Many Czech people read that information and think: "Again? How much longer and we going to stand for this? Why is everyone conniving with them, even closing down the internet discussions so we can't even say our piece?!"  full story

Commentary: Violence in Duchov and Teplice, superficial media are worsening coexistence

Prague, 6.6.2013 21:53, (ROMEA) This commentary was originally published in Czech on 29 May 2013.  full story

Commentary: My father would not have tolerated what the Duchcov attacker did

Duchcov, 1.6.2013 19:47, (ROMEA) So many people, and not just recently, have been cursing us Roma (or Gypsies, whichever you prefer). I'm not going to write about the recent murder of a Romani man in Teplice, because the police are refusing to say anything about that case. What bothers me today is the brutal assault by a Romani boy on a married couple in Duchcov and the opinions expressed online about how that incident should be "addressed".  full story

Marcel Grünza: Gadje, what are you so proud of?

Liberec, 28.5.2013 22:37, (ROMEA) I have just read a blog posting here entitled "Have you ever seen a gypsy in a library?" I am disgusted by these outbursts by would-be Czechs about Romani people. Some of them consider us all lazy, uneducated parasites who don't work, who don't know how to read and write, and who scrounge off of society.  full story

Patrik Banga: Judge, the arrow got him in the head by accident...

Prague, 24.5.2013 7:08, (ROMEA) So: Our Czech William Tell is on trial. He didn't hit the apple but the head, and surprise! The man he shot, died. A legend then sprang up about a hero protecting his property from a horde of gypsies who were robbing his house. The prosecutor, however, sees it differently, and her qualification of what happened approximates murder.  full story

Commentary: Be proud you are Romani

Prague, 3.5.2013 20:13, (Romano vod'i) Some children were playing on the playground. They were probably being too loud because they were really into their game. Some might say they were whooping it up. A neighbor didn’t like it and started yelling at them out the window to be quiet. She threw in some remarks about “gypsies” because the children were Romani. One of the little girls looked up at the lady and said to her: “Lady, why are you shouting at us? When you were still swinging from the trees, we were building Mohenjo Daro!”  full story

Emil Ščuka: We lack a unified concept

Prague, 3.5.2013 19:13, (Romano vod'i) Emil Ščuka is one of the most famous Romani politicians in the Czech Republic. He graduated in law and worked as a public prosecutor, but his original dream of a career was something completely different. In 2001 the magazine Reflex quoted him as saying the following.  full story

Valeriu Nicolae: Roma Social Inclusion Measures the European Commission Can and Should Take

Bucharest, 30.4.2013 10:15, (ROMEA) I have been accused in the past of always complaining about what the Commission does and never offering “constructive” solutions myself. Factually this is false.I am a strong pro-European. I also reject sugar-coating and I think critical thinking is what can get us out of the mess we are in at this moment.  full story

Commentary: Should the state obstruct or support social residential hotels?

Prague, 23.4.2013 18:58, (ROMEA) At a debate in the Czech Republic last week attended by activists, experts, representatives of the public administration and nonprofit organizations, Deputy Regional Development Minister Miroslav Kalous (Civic Democrats - ODS) presented the ministry’s current plans in the area of social housing. Kalous said the ministry's aim is to meet the demand of people who need to live in residential hotels and “to help children and their mothers not end up on the street.”  full story