ČTK

German Police find right-wing extremists' list of 25 000 "enemies"

8.8.2018 6:01 Deutsche-Presse Agentur (DPA) reported last week that the German Police found a list with the names of 25 000 persons considered political enemies by right-wing extremists during an anti-terrorist raid in the northeast of the country last year. The news was revealed in a response given by the German Justice Ministry to a query posed by an MP in the Federal Assembly.  full story

Eyewitnesses allege staff at Czech lake did not help Vietnamese mothers look for their children, who drowned

6.8.2018 9:50 Tragedy struck Lake Lhota near Prague in the Czech Republic last Thursday when two seven-year-old boys were lost - after two hours of searching, they were found, but it was too late. Both boys had drowned.  full story

Italy: Moroccan beaten to death, athlete of Nigerian origin attacked as fascists in the Govt spread racism

1.8.2018 11:29 Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the boss of the anti-immigrant Lega party, is facing criticism from opposition politicians for creating a hateful atmosphere in the country. In recent days Italy has witnessed a series of attacks with apparently racist motivations including Monday's attack on Daisy Osakue, an Italian athlete of Nigerian origin.  full story

Czech Govt report on domestic human rights says debt collections proceedings are the country's biggest problem

28.7.2018 16:36 The Czech Republic has not yet managed to solve its problems with the personal debt trap and overindebtedness, and laws to improve the situation are lacking, which means the rules governing collections proceedings are being corrected by the courts instead. Systematic education of the public to boost their financial and legal literacy is developing only slowly.  full story

Czech expenditure on aid to those in material distress lowest for the last six years

26.7.2018 8:30 Expenditures on the set of welfare benefits known in the Czech Republic as "aid to those in material distress" have significantly fallen for the fourth year in a row and are at their lowest levels in six years. The number of persons receiving assistance from the state is also declining.  full story

Czech PM says Government not satisfied with pace at which EU funds are being drawn

25.7.2018 17:22 The Czech Government is not satisfied with how much EU money the Czech state is drawing and must dedicate more attention to the process than has been paid so far. Speaking at a press conference after a meeting of the Council for the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), Czech PM Andrej Babiš (ANO) made the announcement today.  full story

Analysis finds collections increasing in Czech Republic, affordable housing lacking

21.7.2018 9:41 The growing number of collections proceedings, unaffordable housing and the unequal positions of men and women are currently the most burning problems of Czech society, according to the annual National Report of the Czech Social Watch coalition. Authors of the analysis held a press conference on 19 July to warn that the strategic document UN Agenda 2030, which calls for the fulfillment of aims for sustainable development, are being ignored.  full story

Czech Republic stops accepting Vietnamese citizens' work visa requests for security reasons

21.7.2018 7:57 On 18 July the Czech Republic ceased accepting applications from citizens of Vietnam for long-term residency for the purpose of employment and applications for long-term visas for the purpose of running a business. The Czech Foreign Ministry issued a press release about the decision on 20 July.  full story

Czech NGO teaches Romani people how to start their own businesses

20.7.2018 11:53 The DROM Romani Center in Brno, Czech Republic, in collaboration with a statewide project called "Do It!", has just finished delivering a course to show Romani people how to start their own businesses. According to experts, support for small entrepreneurial activities is one way to address the problem of Romani people finding their place on the Czech labor market.  full story

Italy asks Czech Republic to receive asylum-seekers, Czech PM refuses

16.7.2018 10:13 Responding to a question from the Czech News Agency (ČTK) about the current Italian request for aid with refugees arriving on Italian territory, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) said the Czech Republic will not be accepting any migrants and that he is insisting the reception of migrants be governed by the principle of voluntary action by the EU Member States. Italian PM Giuseppe Conte has asked the EU Member States for aid with redistributing 450 such people who recently ended up lost at sea.  full story

Slovak court finds Romani tenants were discriminated against during eviction and relocation

16.7.2018 9:23 A court in eastern Slovakia has decided that the authorities committed discrimination when they evicted tenants from buildings in the center of the town of Sabinov because their treatment of the non-Romani and the Romani tenants was not the same. The Regional Court in Prešov has now closed a dispute that has lasted more than a decade  with its decision.  full story

German court sentences neo-Nazi to life in prison

11.7.2018 17:43 Beate Zschäpe, the main defendant in the trial of members of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi group, will spend the rest of her life in a German prison according to a sentence handed down against her today by the High Court in the state of Munich, who found her guilty of 10 murders. Deutsche-Presse Agentur reported that her co-defendant Ralf Wohlleben, who supplied the group with weapons, was given a 10-year sentence.  full story

Czech Supreme Court overturns acquittal on publication of Hitler's speeches, wants more evidence

7.7.2018 9:20 The Czech Supreme Court has overturned the acquittal in the case of the publication of a book of speeches by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in Czech translation. The case has been returned to the state prosecutor for further investigation and the accumulation of more evidence.  full story

France: Le Pen and Co. continue to embezzle EU taxpayer money

6.7.2018 15:56 The European Parliament (EP) is demanding that French nationalist MEPs return even more money which, according to the EP, has been spent incorrectly. After first discovering expenditures for non-existent assistants, the EP's financial audit has now pointed to expenditures for costly parties featuring champagne fountains, for example. Agence France-Presse reports that the "National Gathering" (or Rassemblement National, the new name of the former Front National) led by Marine Le Pen owes more than half a million euro to the EP.

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Czech ultraconservative alleges that members of minorities defend their rights at the expense of "heterosexual men who are white"

30.6.2018 12:16 Speaking in the lower house on 27 June, the chair of the xenophobic "Freedom and Direct Democracy" (SPD) party, Tomio Okamura, and the ultraconservative Václav Klaus, Jr (Civic Democratic Party - ODS) criticized the activity of the Czech Public Defender of Rights, Anna Šabatová. Okamura accused her of just defending the rights of minorities to the detriment of "white heterosexual men", and Klaus indirectly called her an extreme leftist.  full story

Survey shows people in the Czech Republic trust each other less and have less tolerance for minorities

30.6.2018 8:42 Trust is declining in the Czech Republic. So is the degree of tolerance for some minorities - immigrants in general and Muslims in particular.  full story

Czech Christian Democrats, SocDems want to stop the use of vouchers in material distress benefits

28.6.2018 6:31 The Czech Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) and Czech Social Democrats (ČSSD) want to absolutely abolish the compulsory disbursal of part of aid to those in material distress in vouchers instead of money and are asking for a return to the previous approach in which beneficiaries received their welfare in money and Labor Offices could decide to disburse just part of the benefits in vouchers in individual cases only. Amendments were submitted by both the ČSSD and the KDU-ČSL during the second reading yesterday of other bills on the issue to make sure that benefits paid exclusively in money will be received by some groups of the more impoverished beneficiaries.  full story

Italian Interior Minister threatens to cancel police protection for crimefighting author who criticizes his anti-Roma attitude

27.6.2018 9:07 Roberto Saviano, the Italian author and journalist whose work has been key to combating the mafia, is criticizing Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's harsh stance against refugees and Romani people. The author has faced death threats for years because of his book about the Camorra mafia in Italy - and last week the Interior Minister said he could lose his police protection.  full story

France: Extreme-right members arrested on suspicion of planning to attack Muslims

26.6.2018 13:23 An extensive anti-terrorist operation by the French authorities late Saturday and early Sunday resulted in the arrest of 10 adherents of the extreme right who are suspected of preparing attacks against Muslim inhabitants in the country. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported the news on Sunday, according to which the suspects created a secret group that was planning violent crimes.  full story

Czech city says 56 evictees still not rehoused, must move by the end of the week

25.6.2018 15:04 Of the two residential hotels in the Czech city of Ústí nad Labem that are closing their operations on Saturday, 56 people still need to be rehoused. There are 224 people officially registered as living in the facilities.

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