Czech Republic

Czech Republic: Romani social workers share their experiences ahead of Rapid Re-Housing project in Brno

24.2.2017 12:43 The City of Brno will be renting apartments to 50 families now living in residential hotels and shelters in the city as part of its Rapid Re-Housing project. The amount of the rent charged will depend on the amount of housing benefit the tenants receive.  full story

Czech Govt Council on Roma Affairs insists Museum of Romani Culture manage Romani Holocaust memorial at Hodonín

24.2.2017 11:04 The Czech Government Council on Roma Minority Affairs is insisting that the memorial to Romani Holocaust victims at Hodonín u Kunštátu be transferred into the administration of the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno. The council also disagrees with removing the term "Romani" from the name of the memorial.  full story

Commentary: Czech tabloid continues its anti-inclusion campaign

24.2.2017 9:46 At a time when we are facing so-called "alternative facts" (or untruths) more and more frequently in the public discourse, correcting the record appears to become more and more of a Sisyphean task. Long before the term "alternative facts" was used by an adviser to the US President, we here in the Czech Republic have been facing a textbook example of how facts and information are handled this way by the media.  full story

Czech Human Rights Minister and Czech President discuss changing the Constitution and other laws

24.2.2017 8:16 Czech Minister for Human Rights and Legislation Jan Chvojka (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) met on 18 February with Czech President Miloš Zeman and his advisers to discuss the position of the Government's Legislative Council, which Chvojka has chaired since December. The two men also held a lengthy debate about the law on social enterprises.  full story

Vice-chair of Czech party says new social housing law unnecessary, Romani activist disagrees

23.2.2017 11:01 Czech MP Markéta Pekarová Adamová, the vice-chair of the opposition TOP 09 party, was a guest of Czech Radio's "Interview Plus" program on 16 February. During her appearance she expressed her reservations about the social housing bill that the current Government promised, in its program declaration, to approve.  full story

Former Miss Roma Mirka Pikolová one of 14 Miss Czech Republic finalists

22.2.2017 10:53 On Monday, 20 February at the Augustian House in Luhačovice, Czech Republic, almost 50 young women competed for the final round of the Miss Czech Republic beauty contest. The jury has chosen 14 finalists.  full story

Czech Republic: Govt Ethics Commission finds Hate Free project manager did not commit unethical behavior

22.2.2017 8:45 News server Romea.cz has been informed that the Ethics Commission of the Office of the Government of the Czech Republic has decided that Nikola Křístek has not
committed any behavior that violates the Code of Ethics for employees of the Office of the Government. Křístek was once the head of the Government's Campaign against
Racism and Hate Violence, a component of which is the Hate Free Culture project.  full story

Jan Cina: Being Romani is a normal part of my identity, but more important is what I know how to do

22.2.2017 8:01 Journalists have an easy time with him. He is civil, talkative, thoughtful, and for now any affectations of being a "star" haven't touched him yet.  full story

Czech Govt Roma Council discusses death case, Romani representatives express growing sense of danger

21.2.2017 8:40 At its session on Friday, 17 February, the Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs discussed the outcome of the investigation into the death of Mr Miroslav Demeter, a young Romani man who died last year in October at a pizzeria in the Czech town of Žatec. The Romani civil society members of the council expressed their concerns about and objections to the investigation of the case and generally, in that context, their growing sense of danger with respect to their own security in the Czech Republic.  full story

Czech Govt Agency for Social Inclusion director says both housing and social workers necessary to social housing

20.2.2017 9:10 A conference on social housing was held on Tuesday, 14 February in Prague's Lichtenstein Palace by the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion in collaboration with the Salvation Army of the Czech Republic. Its aim was to present examples of practical experiences with developing and launching social housing systems in the Czech Republic.  full story

Anniversary of the death of Helena Biháriová, one of the first victims of racial murder in post-1989 Czech Republic

20.2.2017 8:32 The date of 15 February is a tragic anniversary of one of the series of murders of Romani people that appeared in Czech and Slovak society during the 1990s as a new phenomenon. In 1998 Helena Biháriová, a mother of four, was drowned in the flooded Elbe River after encountering two drunken youths from Klatovy, Petr Klazar and Jiří Neff, sympathizers of the skinheads movement who used physical and verbal aggression to drive her into the water.  full story

Czech Police investigating anonymous antisemitic letter in Prostějov

20.2.2017 6:26 Police are investigating the circumstances of an anonymous letter full of antisemitic insults and vulgarities that has been sent to different people in Prostějov in connection with the sometimes passionate discussion about how to arrange for dignified remembrance at the site of the former Jewish cemetery near the local school. Representatives of an American philanthropic foundation, Kolel Damesek Eliezer, which is attempting to rehabilitate the Jewish cemetery, are planning to report a crime because of the anonymous letter that has been addressed to bureaucrats and residents of Prostějov.  full story

Son of former Czech President disseminates photo online with misleading Islamophobic commentary

19.2.2017 19:51 Václav Klaus, Jr. published a photograph from Iran on his Facebook profile on 15 February that purported to show women in Iran having to sit on the floor while the men around them were seated on chairs, commenting on it as follows: "A picture is sometimes worth more than a thousand words. This is (now this weekend) the beginning of the Women's World Chess Championship in Tehran. This is about female journalists - I don't know whether Iranian or from abroad. This is a decent country, uncontrolled street violence does not happen here. They are not far from developing a nuclear weapon. Despite that, their idea that a woman is considered the kind of being that is closer to a dog - doesn't that give you mixed emotions?"  full story

Czech Republic: The English College in Prague fundraises for Romani student scholarship

18.2.2017 10:41 Students attending The English College in Prague are holding a benefit concert for the school's Václav Havel Scholarship in collaboration with the National Gallery on 22 February at Prague's St. Agnes Convent to raise money for a Romani student to study at the prestigious secondary school. "We study at a school where our accent, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or skin color do not matter. We appreciate that, and therefore we would like to make it possible for another Romani pupil to study together with us," the invitation to the event, authored by the students, reads.  full story

Czech state chooses firm to appraise pig farm on concentration camp site

18.2.2017 9:21 The Czech Culture Ministry has chosen a firm to produce an expert appraisal of the value of the pig farm at Lety u Písku located on the site of what was once a concentration camp. The B.S.O. expert institute of Prague will produce it and is being paid CZK 228 690 (EUR 8 463) inclusive of VAT to do so.  full story

Czech NGO working with Roma says state is punishing the poor and motivating them through fear

17.2.2017 14:51 From the beginning of February an amendment to the law on aid to those in material distress has been in effect in the Czech Republic. In addition to other matters, the amendment establishes
that the aid provided to those in material distress (the minimum subsistence allowance) shall be reduced by roughly one-third for people who have been unemployed for one year and have not performed at least 20 hours of unremunerated work per month for their local authority's public works department.  full story

Czech Republic: Non-Romani men fighting "about a girl" misreported by media as neo-Nazi brawl with Roma

17.2.2017 7:53 Online news server udalosti112.cz broadcast reporting including video footage on 12 February claiming that a street battle had erupted in the town of Litvínov, Czech Republic between neo-Nazis and Romani people, writing about a "battle of a group of skinheads with local Roma" that "employed local and state police and emergency medical responders". News server Romea.cz was then contacted by an eyewitness to the incident who said it was not a clash between right-wing extremists and Romani people, but an ordinary "pub brawl" among non-Romani locals involving a dispute "about a girl".  full story

Czech court overturns acquittal in radical Islamic book distribution case

17.2.2017 7:04 The Prague Municipal Court, meeting in closed session, has overturned the acquittal of the former chair of the Muslim Community of Prague, Vladimír Sáňka, and returned the case to the District Court for Prague 1 to be reopened. Prague Municipal Court spokesperson Markéta Puci provided the information in response to a query by the Czech News Agency on 9 February.  full story

Czech Police close investigation into arson attack by neo-Nazis on the Klinika Social Center

16.2.2017 10:40 Prague Police have completed their investigation of the arson attack committed last year against the Klinika Social Center in the Žižkov quarter of Prague 3. The criminal case has been shelved because police failed to ascertain enough facts to begin felony prosecution of a specific suspect.  full story

Czech Justice Minister will not discipline state prosecutor accused of protecting racists

16.2.2017 9:10 Nine months ago the online daily Deník Referendum (DR) filed a motion with the Czech Justice Ministry for disciplinary proceedings to begin against Prague 1 District Attorney JUDr. Zdeňka Galková. Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikán rejected that motion on 7 February.  full story