Features and Commentary

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: Did Romani people traffic in votes in Brno?

20.2.2015 1:55, (ROMEA) The question of whether a racketeering operation was involved in vote-buying during last fall's municipal elections in Brno depends on how racketeering is defined. On 17 February the Czech Constitutional Court overturned a decision that had invalidated the results of that poll in the Brno-sever municipal department.
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Drahomír R. Horváth: Czech Romani Integration Strategy is pure discrimination

19.2.2015 20:37, (ROMEA) From time to time I receive first drafts of Government materials to comment on before they make their way, as bills proposed by the Government, to the lower house. These materials are various concepts, strategies, strategic plans - even strategic "wars".  full story

Czech anti-Muslim group tries to incite Roma against Muslims

Prague, 12.2.2015 23:03, (ROMEA) The ambitious xenophobes in the group called "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" use an intellectual perspective and language of manipulative half-truths and would-be humorous, unctuous servility toward the stereotypical lack of thought here about immigrants, intellectuals, minorities, multiculturalism, nonprofits - and, naturally, Muslims. It is an open question whether there is any point in dealing with them or responding to them.  full story

Renata Berkyová: Slovak reporting on same-sex adoption and marriage casts aspersions on Roma

Prague, 12.2.2015 0:26, (ROMEA) Last Saturday an eighth referendum was held in Slovakia, a referendum "for the family" which has sparked a rather large fuss. The "Alliance for the Family" group, as the initiator of the referendum, has been haunting the public with the idea that the Slovak family is at risk, talking about freedom of speech and of the press, human rights violations, and forced, ideologically-driven sex education.  full story

Romea.cz exclusive: Romani quintuplets' family responds to critique

Milovice, 23.1.2015 1:16, (ROMEA) A recent interview with Ms Klára Vítková-Rulíková on news server Ona.Dnes.cz about the family of Romani quintuplets has sparked a wave of passionate debate on the Czech internet. Vítková-Rulíková, the founder of the Club of Twins and Higher Multiples (Klubu dvojčat a vícerčat - KDV) discussed private family matters in that interview, among other things, accused them of wasting food, and said they were incapable of establishing a functioning system of care for their children, all of which then culminated in her claim that without her direct aid, the family risked having their children taken away by the state.  full story

Czech Republic enters next round of the fight over Romani children and special education

Prague, 14.1.2015 18:22, (ROMEA) The fact that too many children, particularly Romani ones, attend "special schools" in the Czech Republic is a problem that experts and politicians have been discussing here for 25 years. It is also being discussed abroad, because the Czech Republic has reaped criticism from the European Union for it as well.  full story

Czech religious organizations call on public to resist radicalism

Prague, 10.1.2015 23:02, (ROMEA) The chair of the Czech Bishop's Conference, Dominik Duka, the chair of the Ecumenical Council of Churches, Daniel Fakfr, and the chair of the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic, Petr Papoušek, jointly called on the public today not to succumb to radicalism as a result of the anger they might feel over the Islamist terrorists in France. "It is still necessary to insist on the basic principles of an open society. We must primarily insist on freedom of speech, on human rights, and on mutual respect between cultures and religions, as well as on seeking the road of common coexistence," the religious leaders say in a statement made available to the Czech News Agency.  full story

Commentary: Czech anger and the Roma

Prague, 10.1.2015 21:34, (ROMEA) The most recent survey of Czech public opinion and trust in political institutions shows falling voter preferences for the ultra-right DSSS party, confirming the good feeling shared by many people, including this author, that our society is rebounding after hitting rock bottom. However, that is no reason to be rocked into complacency.  full story

Czech Republic: Muslim representative touts conspiracy theories about the murders in Paris

Prague, 9.1.2015 18:07, (ROMEA) Mohammed Abbas, the director of the Muslim Union in the Czech Republic, has given media appearances in which he has doubted whether Islamists were responsible for several high-profile terrorist attacks. Speaking in an interview with Daniela Drtinová on the internet television station DVTV and then on yesterday's episode of Czech Television's "Hyde Park" program, Abbas said the 9/11 attack on New York could have been committed by the U.S. Government; that since no one had ever found the terrorists who committed murder on a London bus it could not be proven that they were Muslim; and that now in Paris it is far from certain that it was actually Muslims who committed these attacks and that a secret service game could well be behind it all.  full story

Miroslav Kováč: Let's be better parents in 2015

Prague, 8.1.2015 0:26, (ROMEA) The year 2014 was, from my perspective, a test for the "maturity" of Romani people in the Czech Republic, their ability to adapt to today's conditions and take advantage of the options offered by democracy to improve their position. A quarter of a century is enough time for us to start drawing on those experiences.  full story

Czech publicity about family of Romani quintuplets crosses the line

Prague, 7.1.2015 21:53, (ROMEA) Klára Vítková-Rulíková has become a celebrity. She became one by supporting the first quintuplets ever born in the Czech Republic and their family.  full story

Czech news server Protiproud claims that all Romani children are retarded

Prague, 7.1.2015 20:09, (ROMEA) The year 2015 has begun in the Czech Republic in one of the worst possible ways: With an hysterical, xenophobic campaign against Muslims and Romani people. Czech MP Tomio Okamura unleashed the hateful whirlwind of opinions with his "war on kebabs" and other quasi-fascist opinions have begun swarming like wasps.  full story

Commentary: Does Okamura have a future?

Prague, 6.1.2015 21:27, (ROMEA) There would be no point in returning to the hateful and stupid remarks by Tomio Okamura about Muslims and no point in covering them at all if a basic question were not hanging in the air: Does this indicate the future of our public discourse and politics? Unfortunately, such a future cannot be ruled out.  full story

2015 issues for Romea.cz: "Practical schools" and social housing

Prague, 2.1.2015 22:55, (ROMEA) The new year in the Czech Republic has begun with the ongoing design of the social housing law and a controversial amendment to welfare policy that will have hard-to-predict consequences. The amendment is intended to restrict "trafficking in poverty" by residential hotels, but it is not clear whether thought has been given to where those now living in such facilities might eventually end up as a result of the changes.  full story

Commentary: Czech counter-intelligence report on anti-Romani marches is racist

Prague, 28.12.2014 0:25, (ROMEA) Evangelical parson Mikuláš Vymětal has written an open letter to the Security and Information Service (BIS) of the Czech Republic regarding its report on the anti-Romani events of 2013. "I am calling this a public letter and I believe that if you publish it, it will increase the hope that the BIS will respond proportionately. It's not much of a Christmas topic, but I view this as a way to take care of unfinished business before the year ends," he wrote to news server Romea.cz, which is publishing the letter in full translation below.  full story

Commentary: Czech Police beat people and expel them instead of "helping and protecting"

Prague, 15.12.2014 22:00, (ROMEA) What the Czech Police did on Saturday after the demonstration to save the Klinika Autonomous Cultural and Social Center looked like a very absurd performance taken from a documentary film about police brutality against demonstrators before the events of 1989. Police unnecessarily beat people up and shouted vulgar curses at the peaceful demonstrators, many of whom were girls.  full story

Breaking News No More: Life for Roma in Greece a Year after “Maria”

Greece, 27.10.2014 23:50, (ROMEA) For Lefteris Konstantinidis, a 34-year-old lawyer, a normal day in his new office is busy. The phone rings often; he runs around printing new case files and continues to take on new clients. His schedule is exhausting, but he still enjoys his work.  full story

Commentary: Islamic fanaticism is repulsive - and so is European fanaticism

Prague, 15.10.2014 19:47, (ROMEA) We are horrified by the blind violence of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and most recently by the so-called Islamic State. We are right to be horrified, as their merciless recklessness combined with fanaticism and the conviction that they own the one and only truth is repulsive, and we are all dealing with this - discussing it, theorizing about it and writing about it.  full story

Czech ombud: Discrimination against Roma underreported

Brno, 10.10.2014 19:08, (ROMEA) In a recent interview with Czech ombud Anna Šabatová, news server iDNES.cz touches on many current topics related to her work. In addition to discussing the much-publicized case of Muslim nursing students who left their studies because of a school's ban on head scarves, the ombud answered questions about her deputy, Stanislav Křeček, the adoption of children by registered same-sex couples, and extensive discrimination against Romani people in housing, on the labor market, and in other areas of life.  full story