Czech Republic

Commentary: Czech Education Minister says "Romani schools" won't change overnight as a result of new law

23.10.2015 19:19 In an interview for the daily Deník.cz, Czech Education Minister Kateřina Valachová said that the ministry's plan to educate all children together is not "social engineering" and that people should not believe that it will mean the Romani children who attend "Romani schools" in the ghettos will suddenly begin attending schools elsewhere. Inclusion, according to the minister, is not something to undertake casually.  full story

Czech Senator wants Constitutional Court to review ordinance about "sitting in public"

19.10.2015 23:09 News server iDNES.cz reports that Czech Senator Václav Láska is planning to bring the town of Rotava before the Constitutional Court over its ordinance restricting "sitting in public" in some parts of its territory. "The expert opinion I have commissioned says the ordinance is not constitutional. The problem is that it is endeavoring achieve an aim other than its stated aim. The restrictions concern just certain sections of the town without any logical reason as to why they should apply to that particular area," he explained.  full story

EU Interior Ministers address how to prevent the dissemination of hatred online

19.10.2015 22:53 Options for preventing the dissemination of hatred online were reviewed by Interior and Justice Ministers of the EU Member States in Luxembourg on 9 October. EU Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová said that large Internet firms should take the same approach on this issue that they have taken to eradicating the dissemination of child pornography.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court orders discrimination cases reopened

19.10.2015 8:30 The Czech Constitutional Court (Ústavní soud - ÚS) has ordered that a case of Romani people who made a reservation at a hotel in Most but were not given a room upon arrival be reopened. According to the original verdict, discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity was not proven, but the ÚS believes doubts persist as to whether the defense argument of the hotel was not itself tendentious.  full story

Czech High Court upholds breakthrough verdict: Media must compensate victim of online racist discussion

18.10.2015 2:46 The High Court in Prague upheld a breakthrough verdict on 13 October by a first-instance court that sentenced the publisher of Parlamentní listy, the OUR MEDIA company, to pay compensation of CZK 150 000 to plaintiff Jaroslav Suchý for the fact that it did not delete racist discussions conducted beneath three articles published online. JUDr. Milena Opatrná said the news server "did not respect the moral or physical integrity not only of the plaintiff, but of ethnic Roma generally" when, despite repeated calls to remove the racist, xenophobic posts from its online discussions calling for the physical destruction of Romani people and for violence, it left them online for three years.  full story

Czech Republic: Homegrown Romani funeral procession mistaken for refugees

16.10.2015 21:08 In recent months a tragicomic scenario has played itself out more than once in which ordinary inhabitants of the Czech Republic have been mistaken for refugees. Last Sunday this scenario repeated itself in Znojmo, when a funeral procession by local Romani people accompanying a deceased relative to her final resting place was mistaken by a bystander for a group of refugees.  full story

Czech Deputy PM: Responsible politicians go against the "voice of the people" to do the right thing

15.10.2015 19:01 Disadvantaged children should attend "normal" schools, people should not live in residential hotels in ghettos but in normal apartments, women should be paid the same as men and more must be done to protect women from violence, and society must learn how to avoid an energy crisis. These are interrelated topics, but we are not used to considering them as such.  full story

Czech Public Defender of Rights says human rights are being violated at the Bělá-Jezová detention facility

14.10.2015 19:23 Anna Šabatová, the Czech Public Defender of Rights, declared yesterday that the situation of children and families with children living in the Bělá-Jezová detention facility for refugees run by the Czech Interior Ministry near Mladá Boleslav is so serious that it amounts to a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights. Šabatová said children there are living in objectively worse conditions than Czech prisoners do.  full story

Czech city enacts ordinance banning "sitting in problem areas"

13.10.2015 19:55 An ordinance has taken effect in 11 selected localities of the Czech city of Most restricting options for spending time outside by banning seating on freestanding walls or on chairs brought outdoors, as well as forbidding the use of barbecue grills. Similar ordinances apply in other towns in the Ústí Region such as Duchcov, Krupka and Litvínov.  full story

Czech Defense Minister unshaken by poll revealing extremism in the Army, sociologist says it reflects society

12.10.2015 7:53 An opinion survey among soldiers that discovered some Czech Army personnel hold extremist views also revealed some positive results, according to Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnický (ANO). "The soldiers have my full trust and I stand behind the Army 100 %," he said after Chief of General Staff Josef Bečvář presented the findings of the survey to MPs on the Defense Committee in the Czech lower house on 7 October.  full story

Czech Republic: Activists sentenced for stunt to draw attention to a suicide say police made hateful, racist remarks

8.10.2015 5:31 News server Aktuálně.cz reported on 6 October that a verdict has been handed down in the case of two activists who tried to draw attention in June to the story of a man from Ostrava who committed suicide out of fear that he would become homeless after his eviction from a residential hotel. The local authority where the man was living did not approve his request for housing benefits, which meant he would no longer be able to afford to stay in the facility.  full story

Vice-Mayor of Czech Republic's second-largest city calls xenophobia the national hobby

6.10.2015 6:06 Brno Vice-Mayor Matěj Hollan (Žít Brno - Live Brno) has engaged in a sharp exchange with South Moravian Governor Michal Hašek over comments Hollan made about xenophobia in Czech society. "[During the Holocaust] there was majority-Czech anti-Semitism, which we love to forget about today, and the anti-Gypsyism of that time, which a big segment of society dismisses today, because to this day verbally sending 'Gypsies' to the gas chambers is the national hobby. These are modes of behavior and thought that are deeply rooted among the Czech public. Reading the debates today about Muslim refugees is essentially absolutely the same as reading the remarks that used to be made about the Jewish refugees. Back then the Jews (and the 'Gypsies') were to blame for everything, and today it's the Muslims (and the 'Gypsies')," Hollan wrote.  full story

Czech police and soldiers practice protecting borders in case migration wave rises

3.10.2015 22:47 Czech Police officers and soldiers conducted joint exercises on 30 September at 06:45 CET to practice reinstating controls at the border with Austria. Czech Police President Tomáš Tuhý announced the exercises to the press shortly before they were about to begin.  full story

Commentary: Won't Czech education reform just rename the schools (again) without achieving equality for Roma?

3.10.2015 1:09 Confusion, incessant attacks by critics, and uncertainties - these are evidently the main characteristics of the current state of Czech education reform. The proposals now on offer are yet another attempt to close the country's "special schools" and achieve inclusion.  full story

Compensation for victims of forced sterilization raised at OSCE event on Roma

2.10.2015 2:27 Speaking at the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw on 1 October, two Romani civil society members raised the urgent issue of the Czech Government's decision not to compensate the victims of forced sterilizations, human rights abuses that have taken place over the course of decades in the former Czechoslovakia and its successor states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, including into the 21st century. Karolina Mirga of the Ternype network raised the issue as well as the continued presence of an industrial pig farm on the site of a former concentration camp for Roma at Lety in the Czech Republic.  full story

Czech Government rejects bill to compensate victims of illegal sterilizations

1.10.2015 9:35 Victims of illegal sterilizations perpetrated over decades apparently will not be receiving compensation from the Czech state according to a proposal developed by the team of Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD). Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (ČSSD), after a nighttime cabinet session, told journalists early this morning that the Government disagrees with the proposal, but would not give details.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani author Andrej Giňa has passed away

1.10.2015 0:40 On 30 September the author Andrej Giňa passed away at the age of 79 after a difficult illness.  full story

Czech Gov't reviewing bill to compensate illegally sterilized women

30.9.2015 19:46 Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier is submitting a bill to the cabinet that legislates an apology, CZK 300 000 (EUR 11 000) in compensation, and coverage of medical treatment for women who have been illegally sterilized. Czech Deputy Human Rights Minister Martina Štěpánková, who informed Czech Television of the legislation today, estimated that several hundred women might get the chance to receive compensation.  full story

Czech Roma Spirit 2015 - last day for nominations tomorrow

29.9.2015 22:42 The Roma Spirit awards in the Czech Republic opened up their nomination process for the fifth time this past July. The mission of Roma Spirit is to appreciate the work of individuals and organizations contributing to improving the situation of Romani people in the Czech Republic.  full story

Czech town segregating Roma in housing and at school - mayor says integration will only happen over his "dead body"

29.9.2015 18:18 Milan Volf, Mayor of the Czech town of Kladno, says it is impossible to move those living in the town's excluded localities into regular apartment buildings and that he believes the per-child allowances offered by the state are like a business opportunity that is motivating families in ghettos to grow exponentially larger. He made those remarks in an interview on 23 September for news server E15.cz  full story