The number of violent attacks with a racist subtext has increased in Germany. From January until mid-September, police recorded 507 such assaults, almost double the number for the same period last year, according to the magazine Spiegel.

In mid-September the Lidové noviny daily paper opened up an important topic by publishing a sketch of an everyday experience at a children's playground in the Czech Republic. What followed was a passionate discussion about whether the article itself was inciting racism or whether it was analyzing the causes of racism, whether a person should "speak up" in certain situations or leave them in tears.

On Saturday evening the "Miss Roma 2016" competition was held at the House of Culture in the Czech town of Hodonín for the 12th year in a row. I have always had mixed feelings about this contest, but I have never before publicly discussed what bothers me about it because it was always clear to me that it involves a significant emancipatory charge for some Romani community members.

Yesterday a court in the Czech Republic acquitted the former chair of the Prague Muslim Community, Vladimír Sáňka, of disseminating a radical Islamic book. According to the Prague 1 District Court, the book promotes an ideology for which it is not possible to criminally prosecute anybody.

One week ago the long-term tensions in the town of Bautzen in the German region of Lausitz, located just north of the border with the Czech Republic, escalated. The clash between neo-Nazis, police officers, and a small group of young refugees resulted in the refugees being chased throughout the entire town and was reported on by news server Romea.cz in detail here.

The British newspaper The Guardian has reported that children from a community known in Syria as the Dom can be seen these days selling bottled water to drivers passing through the northwestern part of Istanbul in the area around Taksim Square. Due to the crisis in the Middle East, an estimated 26 000 members of that community are now homeless.

On 16 September 2016, the Office of the Czech Government Council for Romani Minority Affairs and the Secretariat of the Czech Government Council on National Minorities held a training on the principles of community work and development of the skills necessary for negotiating with local governments. The training was attended by Romani representatives who negotiate with the local authorities in the places where they work and also in the socially excluded localities in which they move.