Features and Commentary

Commentary: The Romani crisis? A lack of unity!

Postoloprty, Czech Republic, 13.3.2013 22:30, (ROMEA) The Romani people were once a traveling nation. As they passed through different landscapes they encountered the diverse cultures of various nations. In some places they were welcomed for their skills in acrobatics and other arts, their manual dexterity, their musical sensibility, their temperament, and last but not least for their ability to work magic or their knowledge of how to mix herbal concoctions.  full story

Czech town reps attend ghetto meeting, bring few answers

Ústí nad Labem, Předlice, 13.3.2013 15:35, (ROMEA) Yesterday the Konexe association convened a meeting between local Romani residents of the Předlice quarter and representatives of the institutions responsible for ensuring order in the town. The meeting took place at the intersection of Prostřední and Řeháčkova streets.  full story

Commentary: Did Romani activist cause CZK 10 million damage?

Prague, 24.2.2013 20:46, (ROMEA) Ladislav Bílý, the chair of the Romani Civic Association (Romské občanské sdružení) was sentenced this week to six years in prison for subsidy fraud. According to information in the media, he committed the fraud between 2007 and 2010 when he requested subsidies in the name of the association from the municipality of Karlovy Vary, the Karlovy Vary Regional Authority, and the Czech Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and submitted a falsified confirmation of solvency with his application.  full story

Commentary: NGO war breaks out in Czech Republic

Prague, 15.2.2013 1:25, (ROMEA) "When People in Need, during the worst moment of this crisis at the residential hotel, when there was a risk that people's children would be taken into state care, released a lie to the media claiming that the residential hotel occupants had rejected 20 apartments, they crushed the faith of the people they were collaborating with, as well as the overall faith of the public in NGOs. At the same time, this organization showed that its media image and the provision of an alibi to its allies at the town hall, from which its grant money flows, is more important to it than are human lives and a good resolution to a crisis situation," reads a recent declaration issued by the Housing for All (Bydlení pro všechny) initiative. The abysmal situation of the Romani people in Ústí nad Labem has drawn attention to the deep antagonisms between those whom we have become used to assigning, in a too-simplified way, into apparently clear categories such as "non-governmental organizations" or "activists".  full story

Czech activist: Nothing about Roma without them

Ústí nad Labem, 12.2.2013 17:38, (ROMEA) The Ústí edition of the deník.cz news server has published an interview with Miroslav Brož of the Konexe civic association in the Czech Republic in which he discusses residential hotels, Romani people, and the mistakes of the social welfare system (in Czech at http://ustecky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/broz-projekty-pro-romy-selhavaji-20130208.html). News server Romea.cz publishes the interview in full translation below.  full story

Jarmila Balážová: I will vote for Karel Schwarzenberg

Prague, 24.1.2013 17:14, (ROMEA) It has been interesting to see what the first direct presidential election in the Czech Republic has unleashed and shown us. Even though some of this all could have been predicted, I really did not expect some of the responses I have seen, just as I did not expect certain people active in cultural and public life to back the candidates they are now backing.  full story

Analysis: Kristallnacht and its connection to Europe today

Prague, 9.11.2012 20:03, (ROMEA) During the late night hours of 9 November and the early morning hours of 10 November 1938, the Nazis in occupied Austria, the occupied border region of the Czech lands, and Germany murdered Jewish people and captured them for the concentration camps. A total of 267 synagogues were burned down or otherwise demolished, 7 500 Jewish apartments and shops were ransacked, 91 Jewish people were directly murdered during the pogrom, and 30 000 ended up in death camps.  full story