Czech Republic

New report shows anti-Romani violence is a pan-European phenomenon

Prague, 13.11.2012 17:10, (ROMEA) The European Association for the Defense of Human Rights (AEDH) and the Czech Helsinki Committee (Český helsinský výbor - ČHV) have issued a fundamental condemnation of the violence faced by Romani people in Europe. The organizations have written about this topic in a joint report entitled "Roma People in Europe in the 21st Century: Violence, Exclusion, Insecurity" (available in English at http://www.helcom.cz/dokumenty/Roma%20REPORT.pdf). Below you will find a translation of the AEDH/ČHV press release about this report and a translation of the Czech summary of the report:  full story

Czech Republic: Romani evacuees leave gym for residential hotels

Ústí nad Labem, 13.11.2012 15:38, (ROMEA) Romani tenants who have been evacuated from an unsuitable building on Beneše Lounského street in the Czech town of Ústí nad Labem have now left their temporary housing in the gym of the primary school in the Předlice quarter and have moved into a residential hotel in the Krásné Březno neighborhood. The 36 tenants, 27 of whom are children, were initially meant to move directly into the residential hotel after being evicted, but rejected it as untidy at the time. News server iDNES.cz reports that a female evacuee says the residential hotel has now been cleaned up and painted.  full story

Czech Roma Still Face 'Educational Apartheid', Despite Court Ruling Five Years Ago

Prague, 13.11.2012 10:33, (ROMEA) The Open Society Foundations is urging the Czech government to end the institutionalized segregation of Roma children within its schools, five years after it was ordered to do so by the European Court of Human Rights.  full story

Former Czech Human Rights Minister on Romani issues

Prague, 12.11.2012 16:54, (ROMEA) News server Novinky.cz has published an extensive interview with former Czech Human Rights Commissioner Michael Kocáb. Romea.cz is publishing in translation the sections of that interview related to his most recent time in politics, including his approach toward Romani issues.  full story

Czech Republic: More cases of dysentery in Ostrava area

Ostrava, 12.11.2012 15:31, (ROMEA) The number of cases of contagious bacillary dysentery in the Ostrava area is rising. The disease began to spread in mid-August, particularly among people living in buildings in disastrous condition and in residential hotels. The epidemic has not been stopped yet. Both adults and children are falling ill. During the last week alone, 12 people, most of them children, caught the disease.  full story

Czech students against neo-Nazi concerts in their town

Žatec, 10.11.2012 18:55, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that hundreds of people in the town of Žatec have signed a petition organized by local students against the fact that neo-Nazi bands perform concerts several times a year in the restaurant of the People's House (Lidový dům) there. Because the restaurant is privately owned, the town does not have many options for intervening against the neo-Nazi events.  full story

Czech Republic: 30 Romani people living without utilities in a restaurant

Čáslav, 9.11.2012 20:41, (ROMEA) Lubomír Vilímek of the Čáslav Police told the Czech Press Agency today that the former U Rajských restaurant in Čáslav is now home to 30 Romani people. With one exception, the families, including children, are living there without any electricity, functioning toilets, or hookups to running water. Police officers and patrolmen who are monitoring the situation have drawn it to the attention of the Building Works Authority of the Čáslav town hall and to social workers. Police said it was not clear to them whether the restaurant has also been licensed for use as housing.  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

Czech Labor Ministry to take Romani agenda from Office of the Government

Prague, 8.11.2012 23:33, (ROMEA) The Insider daily news server (www.denikinsider.cz) reports that reorganizations are being prepared at the Office of the Government that will affect its Human Rights Section. Matters concerning the Romani minority will be transferred to the Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry.  full story

Thousands of children illegally in Czech "practical primary schools"

Prague, 8.11.2012 17:39, (ROMEA) Czech Radio reports that thousands of children who could attend normal primary schools are being instructed according to curricula designed for pupils with "light mental disability" even though such instruction is against the law. On the other hand, some schools in the Czech Republic today are managing to educate Romani pupils together with everyone else. While this depends on teachers' approaches, it primarily depends on pupils' parents.  full story

AI, ERRC: Czech Government still discriminates against Romani school children

Brussels, 8.11.2012 13:01, (ROMEA) Five years after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that sending Romani children in the Czech Republic to ‘special’ and Roma-only schools is discriminatory, Amnesty International and the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) have urged the European Union to press the Czech Government to comply with EU anti-discrimination laws, including the Race Equality Directive, backed by the threat of action for non-compliance.  full story

Independent Romani protest against Czech "special schools"

Ostrava, 7.11.2012 20:56, (ROMEA) News server iDNES.cz reports that dozens of Romani people marched through Ostrava today demanding equal access to education. The protesters wanted to draw attention to the fact that the school system in the Czech Republic is arranged to their disadvantage and results in discrimination against Romani people. At the end of peaceful event, the demonstrators marched from the town hall through the town center to the building of the Czech School Inspection Authority carrying signs reading "Stop segregation!" and "Inclusive education".  full story

Czech senator leaves club over fellow lawmakers' antigypsyism

Brno, 7.11.2012 19:05, (ROMEA) Newly-elected senator and former Constitutional Court Justice Eliška Wagnerová is no longer a member of the Senate's "Club for the Renewal of Democracy" (Klub pro obnovenou demokracii). The opinions of club members Jiří Čunek and Tomio Okamura about Romani people bother her too greatly for her to stay.  full story

Czech town decides to repurchase privatized housing

Přerov, 6.11.2012 22:18, (ROMEA) The Přerov town hall wants to repurchase some of the buildings on Škodova street which it sold to a private investor five years ago. The landlord in the locality has not met the terms of the original purchase agreement, in which he promised to transform the Romani-occupied ghetto into a modern quarter. Town councilors also approved a motion to levy sanctions of CZK 500 000 against the investor and pledged to take care of the Romani people who continue to live in the half-demolished buildings. However, only tenants who have no outstanding debts with the town will be awarded leases for substitute apartments.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani march to mark D.H. anniversary

Ostrava, 6.11.2012 21:29, (ROMEA) On 7 November 2012, a group of Romani residents will peacefully march in Ostrava to mark the anniversary of the judgment handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the matter of "D.H. and Others versus the Czech Republic". That judgment confirmed that Romani children were being discriminated against in their access to education.  full story

Czech activist: NGO more loyal to local govt than to the poor

Ústí nad Labem, Předlice, 6.11.2012 20:41, (ROMEA) Miroslav Brož of the civic association Konexe has written an open letter to the People in Need (Člověk v tísni) public benefit corporation regarding the way in which the Romani minority is being integrated and the situation in the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem. News server Romea.cz is publishing the letter in full translation below.  full story

Czech government must do more to end marginalization and segregation of Roma children in schools, concludes ODIHR report

Warsaw, 5.11.2012 21:48, (ROMEA) The Czech government needs to do more to overcome the marginalization and segregation in schools of children from Roma and Sinti communities, concludes a field assessment visit report published by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) on 26 October 2012.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani tenants removed from dangerous building to gym

Ústí nad Labem, Předlice, 5.11.2012 18:06, (ROMEA) Occupants of a dangerous building in the Předlice quarter of Ústí nad Labem have ended up in a primary school gym. They left the building two weeks after being instructed to move out, at the insistence of a crisis team. The residential hotel into which they were originally to have moved does not meet their needs. They can remain in the gym until they find other housing.  full story

OSF: Czech Government has not ended discrimination of Romani children

Prague, 5.11.2012 17:09, (ROMEA) On 13 November 2007 the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in the case of "D.H. and Others versus the Czech Republic", in which 18 Romani children from Ostrava sued the Czech Republic over their having been assigned to attend "special school" on the basis of their origin. The judgment upheld their complaint and sanctioned the Czech Republic for discriminating against Romani children by disproportionately enrolling such children into the "special schools" (now called the "practical primary schools") which are designed for children who have been diagnosed as "lightly mentally disabled".  full story

Czech Agency says evicted tenants must be housed in the same town

Ústí nad Labem, 3.11.2012 22:37, (ROMEA) The Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion has issued the following press release on the situation in Ústí nad Labem - Předlice:  full story