News

Czech Police refuse to publicize whether they are investigating death threats made on Facebook against Romani celebrity

14.12.2016 20:46 The Police of the Czech Republic are refusing, despite repeated questions posed to them by news server Romea.cz, to say whether they are investigating any of the reports of the multiple death threats that have been made against the Romani singer Radek Banga. Romea.cz has been informed that several criminal reports have already been filed in the matter.  full story

Facebook renews original page for "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" with 160 000 fans

13.12.2016 14:43 Last Thursday, Facebook once again blocked the hate page of the group "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" (Islám v ČR nechceme - IvČRN) which had more than 70 000 fans and had been used to send death threats to a young woman who wanted to aid Afghans. On Friday Facebook then renewed the original page of the IvČRN, which was blocked in January.  full story

Czech Islamophobes have a problem: Konvička has quit yet another political party and Facebook has closed their hate page

13.12.2016 12:41 The Islamophobe Martin Konvička has left the political party "Alternative for the Czech Republic" (Alternativa pro Českou republiku) after unsuccessfully running as its candidate in the October Senate elections in the Tábor area. On Facebook he has posted that he stopped believing in the party's project.  full story

Czech opposition leaders express support for Romani celebrity's protest against xenophobic band

12.12.2016 21:03 The chair of the TOP 09 party, Miroslav Kalousek, and former Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg recently invited Romani musician Radek Banga and his wife to a friendly lunch. The politicians wanted to express their admiration for Banga's protest against an award being given to the xenophobic band Ortel during the "Czech Nightingale" contest, which he did by walking out of the auditorium during the live broadcast and not being afraid to publicly criticize the entire situation.  full story

Slovakia: Many youth support the ultra-right, study finds

12.12.2016 15:59 Many young Slovaks support the ultra-right party called Kotleba-People's Party Our Slovakia (LSNS). Marian Kotleba, the Governor of the Banská Bystrica Region and the party leader, also enjoys great popularity.  full story

Impoverished native Italians rebel against Moroccan immigrants inhabiting social housing

12.12.2016 6:53 Impoverished native Italians are rebelling against the provision of social housing to immigrants. The inhabitants of Rome's low-income San Basilio quarter recently prevented a Moroccan family from moving into an apartment building for the socially vulnerable there.  full story

Analysis of Czech-language Internet finds posts about Roma worse than two years ago - 80 % negative

11.12.2016 20:19 Romani people are discussed in the Czech language online predominantly in terms of stereotypes, and the voice of the Roma themselves in the virtual space is still proportionately weak. Media attention towards Romani people as a minority was overshadowed during 2015 and 2016 by a shift of focus to Muslims and refugees, but the
emotions expressed about the Roma are, at the same time, more negative than they were before.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court upholds suspended sentence for Nazi symbol on vehicle

8.12.2016 19:33 The Czech Constitutional Court has rejected the complaint of a driver who pasted the image of the Nazi Third Reich Eagle and swastika, i.e., a symbol of Nazi Germany, across the rear windshield of his vehicle. He was convicted, given a suspended sentence, and has appealed to successively higher instances.  full story

Czech court sentences youth to four months in prison for threatening to shoot man on Facebook

8.12.2016 6:51 Yesterday the District Court in Louny sentenced 20-year-old Vladimír Kudráč to four months in prison for making a death threat. The case is connected to the October death of a Romani man at a pizzeria in the Czech town of Žatec.  full story

Czech Republic: Demonstration supports 100+ families at risk of eviction in Brno

7.12.2016 19:46 More than 100 households in the apartment buildings of the Brno-Zábrdovice quarter are living in uncertainty. The buildings' owners are changing and the new owner plans repairs to the properties.  full story

Kate Lapham: School should be a place where children learn how to live in society as citizens, to treat each other with respect, and to solve problems

7.12.2016 17:30 Kate Lapham: School should be a place where children learn how to live in society as citizens, to treat each other with respect, and to solve problems
Interview with Kate Lapham, senior Program Manager, Open Society Education Support Program

First I would like to ask you about whether there are any interesting projects in Europe that we could see as successful examples of integration under challenging circumstances?
There has been a great experience in Northern Ireland around the integration of Catholic and Protestant students. The aim is to put these two groups of students, who had previously been experiencing or still are experiencing the impacts of the conflict there within their own family, into the same school environment so they can learn together and also live together again.  full story

Czech court overturns fine against attorney who objected to expert by alleging he was Jewish

7.12.2016 14:08 The attorney Petr Kočí has successfully appealed a fine against him for alleging court expert Michal Mazel was of Jewish origin. The attorney was defending a member of an ultra-right party and claimed Mazel's alleged origin would bias him against the defendant  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

About 1 000 Romani residents of a single Slovak village have been working in Britain and now fear Brexit

7.12.2016 8:26 Reuters reports that Romani residents of Bystrany, Slovakia are concerned about the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union because most of them are working in Britain and sending remittances home. These people now are afraid the option of their working in Britain will soon end.  full story

Slovak President says education is the way to address Romani issues

7.12.2016 7:49 President of the Slovak Republic Andrej Kiska visited the Podskalka Primary School near the town of Humenné two weeks ago. "We're all aware that the Romani issue, how to best include Romani people in everyday life, is a question of education," news server aktualne.sk quoted him as saying.
 full story

Czech Education Ministry and Labor Ministry will buy school lunches for the disadvantaged next year

7.12.2016 7:10 On 22 November 2016 the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport ((MŠMT) announced that it has allocated another CZK 30 million [EUR 1.1 million] to cover the cost of providing school lunches to socially disadvantaged children free of charge, according to a press release posted to its website. The recipients of the subsidy program for 2017 will again be nonprofit organizations who will arrange for payments for school lunches for pupils at primary schools whose parents are unable for financial reasons to afford them, MŠMT said.  full story

Report on the coerced sterilization of Romani women in the Czech Republic describes last 50 years through testimony

6.12.2016 20:29 The European Roma Rights Centre in Budapest (ERRC) has published a detailed report about the coerced sterilization of Romani women in the Czech Republic. The document of more than 80 pages describes the last 50 years primarily through the testimonies of individual women.  full story

European Commission: Internet giants must combat hatred more

6.12.2016 10:00 The European Commission has warned Internet companies such as Facebook and YouTube that they must expend more effort to combat hatred online because they are too slow at removing racist posts, news server EurActiv.cz reports. If they do not improve, the Commission is prepared to adopt norms that will legally force them to change their approach, according to EurActiv.cz.  full story

Some Czech schools don't teach enough about democracy

6.12.2016 9:08 One-third of primary and one-fifth of secondary schools in the Czech Republic are neglecting the instruction of subjects that are supposed to be priorities and are crucial to involving pupils in a democratic society. Such topics include an active approach to human rights, development of a general overview and civic competencies, prevention of extremism, respect for cultural differences, and support for democratic values.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani housing estate residents sign petition complaining about conditions

5.12.2016 18:25 Dozens of occupants of the Janov housing estate in the Czech town of Litvínov have drawn up a complaint and petition about their housing conditions. They are blaming the Krušnohor Apartment Building Cooperative for the disrepair of the properties it owns there.  full story