News

Interview with Romani activist Veronika Kmetzová of Předlice in the Czech Republic

18.3.2017 9:47 Veronika Kmetzová (age 29) is a Romani activist who, in collaboration with other partners, has established an association, Amare Předlice, which has tasked itself with aiding the improvement of the lives and social situations of the inhabitants of the Předlice neighborhood of Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic. In its manifesto, the group says one of its aims is to "focus on improving public spaces in Předlice and on work with the local community to involve them in finding solutions".  full story

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

Children stone flamingo to death in zoo, Czech Internet users blame all Roma, protest march scheduled

17.3.2017 11:47 Photographs of a flamingo that three Romani children stoned to death in the zoo in the Czech town of Jihlava are making the rounds of social networking sites. Emotions sparked by the incident have immediately spun the wheel of hatred and a march, ostensibly to draw attention to the security situation there, has now been scheduled for the end of the month.   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

Interview with Czech Vice-Mayor who believes the Govt method for identifying Romani people crosses the line

17.3.2017 8:57

Ivan Langr, the Vice-Mayor of Liberec who is opposed to the "Romani census" that the Czech Government requires for its annual report on the state of the Romani minority, has taken a sharp stand recently. He has even compared the method of estimating who is Romani according to people's appearance to the approaches taken by members of the SS during the Second World War. 

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Karin Marques: A visit to the Romani children in the Slovak schools

17.3.2017 7:14 Karin Marques, a specialist in inclusive education with the Open Society Fund Prague, has published on the website of the foundation her impressions from a study trip to Slovakia organized by the League of Community Schools (Liga komunitních škol), which is involved in community education and inclusive education. News server Romea.cz publishes it here in full translation:  full story

Gwendolyn Albert: Is impunity ending for ethnic discrimination in the Czech schools?

16.3.2017 16:59

The judgment earlier this month finding that a primary school discriminated against Romani enrollees into first grade on the basis of their ethnicity stands out as an example of children and their parents asserting their right to education in the Czech Republic. Should the school appeal, and should the first-instance judgment withstand higher court scrutiny, we might be able to say that a first blow has been dealt by the Czech courts to the impunity for ethnic discrimination in the schools that has persisted here for decades.

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Czech Vice-Mayor says Czech Govt's method for collecting data about Romani people is "inhumane"

16.3.2017 10:55 The Czech town of Liberec is refusing to send a report about the state of the Romani minority to the Regional Authority for delivery to the Office of the Czech Government. Such a report has, for years, served as background material for a nationwide report on that issue.  full story

Czech association of local residents wants to clean up and revive the Předlice ghetto

15.3.2017 7:57 "We are a group of people, non-Roma and Roma, who can no longer watch the situation in the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem, where most of us live. We do not want
Předlice to continue to be considered the worst neighborhood in the Czech Republic, to persist as a ghetto. We want to put Předlice back on its feet, solve its problems, and activate its inhabitants," reads the manifesto of the AMARE Předlice association, which was created at the beginning of this year.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani quintuplets finally receive donations

15.3.2017 7:22 Last week the City of Prague disbursed roughly CZK 616 000 [EUR 23 000] to the mother of the first-ever quintuplets in the Czech Republic, Alexandra Kiňová, from the
collection to which people had contributed in support of her children. Vít Hofman, spokesperson for Prague City Hall, announced the news on Monday.  full story

"Baruvas" Romani student meeting in Brno, Czech Republic confirms that education makes sense

14.3.2017 7:11 "It was a brilliant feeling to see Romani people around me who are interested in education, who are motivated, who have dreams and vision. I am glad that none of us are alone in this now. Personally, it gave me a lot of new energy and appetite to work on myself even more, because I have the hope that it makes sense to do so," says Martin Dudi, a student of Philosophy and Religion at the South Bohemian University who attended a meeting of Romani college and high school students, "Baruvas", that took place in Brno during the first weekend in March.  full story

Czech HateFree campaign will continue in a different form, Govt issues statement fully backing its manager

13.3.2017 6:55 The Czech Government's HateFree Culture campaign will continue next year in a different form. Deputy Human Rights Minister Martina Štěpánková informed members of the
lower house of the decision on 7 March.  full story

Czech online media pro believes turning on critical thinking is easier than censoring the Internet

12.3.2017 21:06 At the beginning of March, the ROMEA organization used its Facebook page to broadcast a second live educational webinar, this time featuring lecturer Pavel Kasík, an editor at Technet.cz, and a young student of andragogy, Denisa Maková on how to discuss fake news on the Internet and social networking sites with others. "Whenever anybody believes he or she knows something, it's very difficult to demonstrate to that person that basically he or she does not," Kasík said in the introduction, describing one of the problems he has encountered during his work in the media.  full story

Czech disinformation outlet misinforms readers that a refugee camp "like Calais" is growing in Prague

11.3.2017 21:29 The dissemination of disinformation and fake news to manipulate Czech readers takes various forms. A fresh example from the Czech tabloid Parlamentní listy demonstrates that the images used in news reporting play a significant role in such efforts.  full story

Czech Government approves social housing bill, ANO insists on reservations

11.3.2017 12:02 The long-anticipated, much-discussed social housing bill will now make its way to the Czech Chamber of Deputies. The bill's authors claim it should reduce trafficking in poverty and was approved by the Government on 8 March, according to cabinet spokesperson Martin Ayrer.  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

Czech Human Rights Minister wants Lety concentration camp memorial administered by Museum of Romani Culture, relative of victims disagrees

11.3.2017 8:03 Czech Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation Jan Chvojka declared on the occasion of a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Romani Holocaust held on Tuesday, 7 March at the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno that he intends for the Museum to administer the memorial to the victims of the Romani Holocaust at Lety u Písku instead of the current administrator, the Lidice Memorial. "The minister will advocate for administration of the memorial at Lety to fall under the Museum of Romani Culture," the minister's press spokesperson, Michal Kačírek, confirmed to news server Romea.cz on 9 March.  full story

Germany: Trial begins of right-wing extremists who used Czech fireworks to make bombs

9.3.2017 14:56 On 7 March the trial began in Dresden under extraordinary security measures of eight right-wing extremists charged with carrying out a series of bomb attacks against their political opponents and refugees. The seven men and one woman, who also procured the material for their explosives in the Czech Republic, face many years in prison if convicted.
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Are dogs being abused in Romani settlements in Slovakia? Romea.cz asks the authorities and experts

9.3.2017 14:06 A group called the Animal Rights Association (Sdružení za práva zvířat) in Bratislava, Slovakia, recently posted information to the Facebook profile of its "Czechoslovak Spay-and-Neuter Program" about its activity in Romani settlements there. The association is doing its best to aid dogs who, as they have documented through photographs, are frequently to be found in an underfed state in those localities.  full story

French court fines Jean-Marie Le Pen for abusive remarks about Romani people - again

9.3.2017 12:39 A French appeals court has fined the founder of the ultra-right party Front National (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, for abusive remarks he made about Romani people in 2013. The Czech News Agency reports that Last April's fine of EUR 8 000 has been reduced to EUR 5 000 but does not specify why.  full story