Jana Baudyšová

Czech Police charge man who urged daughter to practice beating Muslims or Romani people with a baseball bat

17.9.2017 17:51 Czech Police have charged a man who was filmed urging his young daughter to use a baseball bat to hit a pillow while imagining it was a "Muslim or a Gypsy". The video was first reported on by news server Romea.cz after a Facebook user nicknamed Olloph Samorost posted it to his profile at the beginning of August.  full story

Exhibition "A Vanished World" about indigenous Czech Roma and Sinti again on display in Prague

17.9.2017 16:20 The traveling exhibition "A Vanished World" ("Zaniklý svět") about the indigenous Czech Roma and Sinti that has been created by the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu - VPORH) is returning to Prague. Through rare archival materials and photographs, the exhibition presents the lives of Roma and Sinti in the Czech lands prior to their imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps.  full story

UN Human Rights Regional Office for Europe welcomes Czech Govt genocide site buyout, calls for illegally sterilized women to be compensated

11.9.2017 17:28 The UN Human Rights Regional Office for Europe announced on 31 August that it welcomes the recent decision by the Czech Government to purchase a pig farm located close to the World War II-era concentration camp at Lety u Pisku that was used for the detention of Roma. Several hundred Roma died in inhumane conditions at Lety, including many children.  full story

Slovak President Kiska calls on voters to remove Fascists from office

5.9.2017 11:08 Slovak President Andrej Kiska gave a speech in Banská Bystrica last week to celebrate the anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising in which he sharply objected to the ultra-right party "Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko Mariana Kotleby" (Marian Kotleba's People's Party Our Slovakia - LSNS), which holds seats in the national legislature and the governorship of the Banská Bystrica Region. "I believe it is our duty to do more than just commemorate the bravery of our forebears one day a year and lay flowers at the memorials to the fallen. At a time when Nazi and Fascist ideologies are growing unscrupulously in our country, it is not enough recall the past and to make speeches," he said.  full story

Czech broadcast authority: TV news misidentifying burkinis as regular clothes failed basic duty to viewers

12.8.2017 20:07 The Czech Council on Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV) has launched an administrative proceedings with the commercial TV Prima station over its reportage entitled "Clothed Muslim women swim in pool". The station broadcast the report during its evening news program on 10 July and informed the public that Muslim women at Prague's Aquapalace Čestlice had gone swimming while dressed, i.e., in clothing that broke hygiene regulations, allegedly endangering other swimmers' health.  full story

Prague LGBT Pride festival is underway, Roma organizing Hot Chocolate stage at the post-parade party

11.8.2017 8:17 On 7 August, the seventh annual Prague Pride festival celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) persons began with events and exhibitions. More than 100 cultural, discussion, social and sports events were on offer this week, and it will all culminate in the traditional Saturday march through the center of the Czech capital.  full story

Czech mayor once praised for Roma integration halts subsidies to part of housing estate, impact on tenants unreported

1.8.2017 12:45 The Czech News Agency reports that following the towns of Děčín, Jirkov and Most, the famous village of Obrnice has become yet another municipality in the Ústecký Region to decide to exploit the recent amendment to the law on aid to those in material distress and to halt the disbursal of housing benefits to addresses in so-called "areas with an increased incidence of socially negative phenomena". The decision specifically affects the inhabitants of at least three prefabricated buildings in the village's local "Nová výstavba" housing estate, but the Czech News Agency does not report what will become of them.  full story

Czech towns criticize abolition of ordinances about sitting, advisor to Labor Minister references "inadaptable gypsies"

30.7.2017 8:52 Earlier this month the Czech Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the ordinances adopted by towns in North Bohemia banning people from sitting outdoors on anything other than a bench. The decision has sparked many reactions of disagreement.  full story

Czech folk singer publicly supports ultra-nationalist in runup to elections

29.7.2017 9:00 The chair of the "Freedom and Direct Democracy" movement, Tomio Okamura, has a new supporter. After meeting the famous singer Jaromír Nohavica last Sunday at a shopping center in Ostrava, he posted a photograph of the two of them to online social networks.  full story

Director of Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion resigning

28.7.2017 19:50 Radek Jiránek is ending his time as director of the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion. He will remain in office until the end of September.  full story

Slovakia: Nominations begin for Roma Spirit 2017 under auspices of President Kiska

28.7.2017 17:23 Nominations have begun for the prestigious ninth annual Roma Spirit awards in Slovakia, which highlight extraordinary deeds and efforts by specific individuals and organizations to improve the life and position of Romani people there. The award is administered by the Association for Culture, Education and Communications (ACEC), Slovak Radio and Television, and the Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for the Roma Community.  full story

Czech Government "takes note" of Report on the State of the Romani Minority for 2016

28.7.2017 10:19 The Czech Government at the beginning of this week discussed and took note of the "Report on the State of the Romani Minority for 2016", which assesses the development of the situation for Romani people in the Czech Republic and the success of state measures to support Romani integration. Documents entitled "Information about the Fulfillment of the Roma Integration Strategy to 2020" and "Information about the Fulfillment of Government Decrees" on the integration of the Romani minority and the active approach of the state administration to implementing measures adopted by related Government decrees as of 31 December 2016 were part of the review.  full story

Head of Czech development aid organization notices situation in Romani ghettos all but unchanged

28.7.2017 9:21 "Always, naturally, somebody can be found who doesn't care for this part of our work. Even in that aspect, however, the situation is changing. Previously the absolute majority of people had a simplified reaction: 'Why, for God's sake, are you aiding the gypsies? It would be better to go to Africa to aid the black people.' Today most people comprehend that this is a problem that must be solved," said Šimon Pánek, a former student leader of Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution who is director of the People in Need development organization in an interview for news server Deník.cz marking its 25th anniversary.  full story

Czech-language, racist website asked people to "Snap an immigrant!", Roma and tourists were in the photos

27.7.2017 19:55 "Have you encountered suspicious individuals or entire groups in your area who decidedly do not look like tourists from Africa or from countries known for their sand and sun? Do you not know to whom to turn with your concerns? You can post them here with your photographs of possible illegal migrants," read the Czech-language website Vyfoť-imigranta.cz ("Snap an immigrant!") - at least, it did until 24 July.

 full story

Czech Police say assault on Muslim women in Prague by aggressive woman was a misdemeanor

27.7.2017 18:51 The case of an attack on two Muslim women as they were on their way to the Divoká Šárka aquapark in Prague has been assessed by police as a misdemeanor. The Muslim women were chaperoning 13 children on a trip when they were photographed by a woman who then assaulted one of them both physically and verbally when they asked her to stop taking their picture.  full story

Germany compensating Czech and Slovak Roma 72 years after Nazi atrocities

19.6.2017 16:09 "From an inconspicuous article in the newspaper I learned that Germany had begun to compensate Jewish [Holocaust survivors] in the post-communist states. I could not find any mention of Romani people anywhere. That country left such a horrible mark on us Roma and continues to behave as if nothing ever happened to us. That angered me terribly," recalls the chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic (VPORH), Čeněk Růžička, when asked how last year's breakthrough decision came about to compensate Czech Roma for the hardships caused them by their imprisonment in German concentration camps.  full story

Czech youth faces three years in prison for Nazi salute and swastika

15.6.2017 10:23 A youth wearing a Nazi swastika on his back was arrested on Zábělská Street in the Czech town of Plzeň on Sunday morning. He had consumed alcohol and drugs and was giving the Nazi salute.  full story

Slovakia: Romani band Sendreiovci perform at concert of Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer

8.6.2017 13:19 On 2 June the Sendreiovci Romani band performed at the Bratislava concert of the famous Hollywood composer of film scores, Hans Zimmer, one year after performing at his afterparty. "Yesterday we played for the Czech Prime Minister in the Tatras and today we're here," Vlado Sendrei told the Slovak news server dennikn.sk.  full story

Finland investigating racist commentaries shared on Facebook by police officers

7.6.2017 10:51 Police officers in Finland may face criminal prosecution over racist commentaries about immigrants that they posted to a closed Facebook group after the Finnish investigative news server Long Play discovered the commentaries and reported on them. Czech news server denik.cz cites the BBC as reporting that the Finnish National Police Council has submitted material to the prosecutor on the issue.  full story

Sweden to compensate thousands of Roma after police illegally keep ethnic database on them

5.6.2017 7:32 An appeals court in Sweden has backed the Romani plaintiffs who have sued over illegal data collection about them. The 11 people, eight adults and three children, will receive 35 000 Swedish crowns (EUR 3 600) as compensation for the damage done to them by police in the Skane District of southern Sweden creating a database about them solely on the basis of their ethnicity.  full story