Czech Republic

Czech ombud says human rights are being violated everywhere she looks

17.3.2015 0:41, (ROMEA) The weekly RESPEKT (12/2015) has published an interview with the Czech ombud, Anna Šabatová, in which she discusses discrimination against Romani people with author Marek Švehla. "Human rights violations occur wherever you look here," she says in the interview.  full story

Czech online environment cultivating hatred of Roma

16.3.2015 23:08, (ROMEA) "So the gypsies are going tol get preferential treatment at the Labor Office. They will also be giving them all CZK 60 000 for enrolling their children into school, where they will get free food."  full story

Czech DSSS supporter tells court that "gypsies" and homeless people are better off dead

Prague, 16.3.2015 16:50, (ROMEA) Jan Mokrý (age 24), who is accused of the attempted murder of two homeless men, told the court today that his intention had been to torture them. He also said he regrets that they survived his attack.  full story

Czech Republic: Demonstration against Islam, counter-protest for coexistence

České Budějovice, 14.3.2015 22:27, (ROMEA) More than 200 people gathered in the town of České Budějovice today for a demonstration convened by the "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" initiative. Approximately 30 people counter-protested them nearby.  full story

Commentary: Embarrassing ministerial games about Romani children and the "special schools"

14.3.2015 19:10, (ROMEA) On 12 March a sad and serious fact about the discrimination of Romani children in the Czech Republic was confirmed: The approach of the Czech Education Ministry continues to show that it does not take seriously the notion that schools should be open to all children and that Romani children should enjoy equal access to education. The ministry's position on this issue is embarrassing at the very least.  full story

Czech Republic: Demonstration against scandalous verdict acquitting Slovak Police of abusing Romani children

13.3.2015 23:27, (ROMEA) At the end of February a court in Slovakia acquitted police officers accused of having abused Romani children aged between 11 and 15 who had been suspected of injuring and robbing an older woman. According to the indictment, the officers forced the children to strip and to beat each other, among other things.  full story

Czech Republic: Ecumenical prayer against Islamophobes to take place in České Budějovice tomorrow

13.3.2015 20:24, (ROMEA) Tomorrow, Saturday 14 March, the "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" initiative will hold yet another demonstration, this time on Přemysl Otakar II. Square in the town of České Budějovice. In the Facebook announcement of the event, organizers led by Martin Konvička are tempting people to come by saying the event will feature the sale of propaganda items and refreshments and are attempting to ensure a big turnout by arranging for participants to drive there together.  full story

Czech President appoints Justice Minister Pelikán, known for his anti-racist work

Prague, 12.3.2015 18:43, (ROMEA) Czech President Miloš Zeman has appointed a new Justice Minister today. Robert Pelikán, a 35-year-old lawyer, now holds the post.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani youth beaten by police says officers told him he would die

Prague, 11.3.2015 22:58, (ROMEA) "I feared for my life," a Romani 19-year-old who recently experienced the worst date of his life told news server Romea.cz - the incident resulted in his fleeing through a forest at night and ended with his being unfit to return to work for more than a month. Nicolas Kurej contacted the ROMEA organization, which provides aid to victims of discrimination and hate violence, claiming he had been beaten up in two location, one of them a forest on the outskirts of Prague, in a brutal way by three men, two of whom were uniformed police officers from the Prague 14 Local Department of the Police of the Czech Republic.  full story

Commentary: Czech mayor declares war on "inadaptables" again

11.3.2015 19:12, (ROMEA) Mayor Jiří Čunek (Christian Democrats) has announced to the Czech News Agency that the town hall in Vsetín is establishing a working group on the issue of "inadaptables" and will "seek measures to make the town calm and safe and options for stopping these groups of inhabitants or individuals from causing problems and tensions in town." The Czech News Agency reports that the mayor believes the town hall needs to review whether its position on rent defaulters or other citizens who have repeated problems with maintaining order might be too generous in some cases.  full story

Director of Czech Gov't agency says petition against "gypsies" to PM is really about real estate

10.3.2015 19:10, (ROMEA) Dissatisfied citizens living at the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov have sent a petition to the Czech Government calling for a rigorous solution to their problems - they claim it is no longer possible to live there because of the "gypsy minority terrorizing the majority". They have also expressed concern that a hard-hitting anti-Romani event similar to the ones that took place there in 2008, which they call a "small-scale civil war", could be repeated.  full story

Czech Republic: Work by Aleš Veselý to be featured as part of Memorial of Silence

Prague, 9.3.2015 17:42, (ROMEA) A sizable statue by the sculptor Aleš Veselý in the form of railroad tracks heading to heaven will be part of the Memorial of Silence (Památník ticha) to be installed at Prague's Bubny train station. The location is slated to become not just a place for recalling the tragic history of the transports of Jews to the concentration camps, but also a center for discussions about the Holocaust and its legacy today  full story

Czech Republic: Audit of Romani newspaper finds no wrongdoing

9.3.2015 16:31, (ROMEA) On 11 January, Pavel Pečinka, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Romano hangos periodical, wrote to Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman to say the publication had become a family business run in a non-transparent way with strange accounting practices and demanding an investigation. Several days ago the ministry undertook an audit and found no such problems at the editorial office.  full story

Czech Republic: Vandas re-elected DSSS chair

Prague, 9.3.2015 0:57, (ROMEA) The Workers' Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti - DSSS) will be led for the next two years by its only chair to date, Tomáš Vandas (age 46). At the party's convention yesterday, 90 of the 92 delegates participating voted for him.  full story

Norwegian, UK, US ambassadors to Czech Republic praise nonprofit and school for Romani inclusion in Trmice

Trmice, 7.3.2015 21:07, (ROMEA) The Norwegian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Siri Ellen Sletner, UK Ambassador to the Czech Republic Jan Thompson, and US Ambassador to the Czech Republic Andrew Shapiro have praised a nonprofit organization and a primary school in the town of Trmice as a good example of how social inclusion should work. Trmice is considered a socially excluded locality; more than one-third of the children attending the local school are Romani.  full story

Czech Trade Inspection Authority investigating firms leasing apartments at Janov housing estate

7.3.2015 20:13, (ROMEA) The long-term experience of Romani apartment-seekers in the town of Litvínov is unequivocal: Apartments are only available for them to lease at the Janov housing estate. Over the past few years a ghetto has gradually been created there.  full story

Czech opinion poll: Roma still the least-liked

Prague, 7.3.2015 2:09, (ROMEA) Of the various national groups living in the Czech Republic, sympathy for Arabs, Greeks, Jews and Serbs has declined compared to last year, according to a February survey by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM). As in previous surveys, people continued to express the most sympathy for ethnic Czechs and Slovaks and the least sympathy for Romani people
 full story

Czech Republic: "Living Library" combats prejudice

Prague, 7.3.2015 1:26, (ROMEA) "This has definitely helped me in that I became aware, from their stories, of how hard life can be for people," says high school student Agáta Matějková of her experience with the Living Library. She won't be borrowing Čapek or Hemingway there, but she is able to speak with the "books" she chooses - literally.  full story

Janov residents petition Czech PM over "gypsies"

7.3.2015 0:10, (ROMEA) Residents of the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov who are calling themselves the "decent majority" have sent a petition to Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. The residents are asking the state to aggressively intervene in their neighborhood.  full story

Czech vice-mayor wants to turn ghetto into recreation zone

5.3.2015 0:44, (ROMEA) The town of Ústí nad Labem wants to transform the ghetto of Předlice, where two years ago a young woman was killed when a building collapsed, into a recreation zone. Is this a realistic vision?  full story