Ondřej Mrázek

The bells in Ukraine are tolling for the Roma

13.9.2018 10:30 Bloody pogroms and systematic human rights violations committed by members of state-tolerated extremist organizations against Romani encampments have sparked an exceptionally strong reaction recently from international institutions and politicians. These figures are calling on Kyiv to make these racist groups illegal and to take strong action against them.  full story

Ukraine: Non-Romani politician charged with shooting one Romani man dead during pogrom and wounding four others

6.6.2017 7:15 Is it a case of local racism, or revenge for an attack on a politician's son? Ukrainian Police have charged a non-Romani regional councilor with the premeditated murder of a Romani man committed during an anti-Romani pogrom.  full story

Ukraine: Odessa is flooded with anti-Romani posters

2.1.2017 11:33 Squares and streets in the Ukrainian city of Odessa have recently been flooded with posters featuring portraits of Romani people splattered with blood and messages such as "Roma are bandits and murderers!" Other posters read "Don't forget Loshchynivka", a reference to a case in which a girl from that village was murdered in August, sparking pogroms against local Romani residents.  full story

Commentary: An oasis of green and white has been flooded with Brownshirt mud

14.9.2016 15:27 The Bohemians Praha 1905 football club, based in the Vršovice quarter of Prague, is wearing a coat of shame today. Actually, we all are.  full story

Russia: Massacre of Romani people in the Urals, two dead, six injured, media reporting is biased

14.9.2016 7:56 A tragic exchange of gunfire in Russia between a group of Romani people and three local non-Romani businessmen on Saturday, 3 September has resulted in the deaths of two Romani people and the injury of six. Some media outlets in Russia are reporting the incident as an assault perpetrated by a group of armed Roma on some unsuspecting local entrepreneurs who had no choice but to defend their own lives and protect their family members.  full story

Russia: Romani residents of Tula rebel over gas supplies

29.5.2016 11:35 In one of the biggest Romani settlements in Russia a mass battle took place several weeks ago between local residents and police. The cause was the efforts of gas technicians to cut the Romani residents off from a gas pipe they had illegally been tapping.  full story

Ukraine: Roma in Transcarpathia fear hunger, mobilization and the police

21.3.2015 23:59, (ROMEA) News server Romea.cz has interviewed Romani studies scholar Michael Beníšek about the everyday life of Romani people in the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod and its environs, their concerns, identity and language, their relationship toward the gadje, their love of Bollywood films and the new wave of Romani refugees from Transcarpathia now entering Britain with Hungarian passports. Beníšek studied Indology and Romani Studies at the Philosophy Faculty of Charles University in Prague, where he then remained at the Romani Studies Seminar as an educator  full story

Ukraine: Terrorist attack in Kharkov results in four dead, hopelessness and insecurity

1.3.2015 20:19, (ROMEA) In the Czech Republic, the bloodshed caused by the shooting in Uherský Brod, the worst such incident in Czech history, has overshadowed media coverage of a terrorist attack committed last weekend against those participating in the "March for Dignity" in Kharkov to mark the first anniversary of the victory of the Maidan uprising. Throughout Ukraine, concerns have multiplied that a new phase of the civil war might be beginning in Kharkov involving an expansion of the war zone and the destabilization of the tense local situation in the run-up to municipal elections this fall.  full story

Czech court levies record damages against online publisher for racist discussion posts

Prague, 29.1.2015 0:38, (ROMEA) A Czech court has, for the first time, handed down a punishment for the racism that occurs in online discussions beneath articles posted to news servers and social networking sites, a phenomenon that has yet to be sufficiently prosecuted here. Plaintiff Jaroslav Suchý has succeeded with a lawsuit against OUR MEDIA, the publisher of the online tabloid Parlamentní listy, and the Municipal Court has awarded him damages of CZK 150 000 for insults targeting him in anonymous online discussions.  full story

International Romani charity says helping others is a joy

27.1.2015 22:08, (ROMEA) A Czech Romani man and a Slovak Romani man have established a small charity organization abroad and begun aiding impoverished Romani children. They have delivered a first installment of aid to Romani settlements in Slovakia and are planning to deliver more in future.  full story

Ukraine: Editorial offices of "disobedient" newspaper set on fire in Kharkov

Kharkov, 15.1.2015 18:59, (ROMEA) A serious incident took place last weekend in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov when unidentified perpetrators broke windows in the editorial offices of the nationwide newspaper Slovyanka, defaced the walls with Nazi swastikas and threatening messages, and set the building on fire with Molotov cocktails. According to eyewitnesses, the group of perpetrators had been active participants in demonstrations in Kharkov honoring the victims of the Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris.  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

"We aren't racists, but..." actually we are - and pretty disgusting ones

Prague, 23.12.2014 23:53, (ROMEA) An essential exhibition mapping the racism and xenophobia that persists to this day in Czech society is being ignored by the mainstream media here. This is despite the fact that the state of affairs captured by the exhibition is glaringly obvious.  full story

Slovak town says: Fascism? Not here!

Bánská Bystrica, Slovakia, 23.12.2014 20:50, (ROMEA) The town of Banská Bystrica had reason to celebrate this month even before Christmas or New Year's. The town marked Human Rights Day on 10 December in grand style as part of a festival of humanity, solidarity and tolerance with the telling name "Not in Our Town".  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

Russia: Neo-Nazi gang connected to Kremlin murdered anti-Fascists, immigrants and judges

Moscow, 1.12.2014 2:09, (ROMEA) The Moscow Regional Court has been the venue recently for a closely watched trial in the BORN (Bojové organizace ruských nacionalistů - Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists) case. Members of the group have been charged with murdering several anti-Fascists, attorneys, immigrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia, a journalist and judges.  full story

Czech authorities alarmingly unwilling to prosecute online hate crimes

Prague, 22.10.2014 0:10, (ROMEA) Ill-will, incompetence or indifference. In which category does the inactivity of the Czech Police with respect to racist threats and verbal attacks belong?  full story

The Purge: Czech local and Senate elections in 2014

Prague, 9.10.2014 23:01, (ROMEA) Aggression, hatred and vulgarity: These are the main features of the campaign in the runup to this weekend's local and Senate elections in the Czech Republic. What's more, intolerance, racism and xenophobia are not just fads being followed by what are traditionally extremist, obscure, small movements and parties.  full story

Czech Republic: Roma claim police apply double standard

Kadaň, 1.10.2014 20:01, (ROMEA) Fear of going out onto the street alone, terror after being threatened with having one's throat cut and run over by a car, a feeling of hopelessness that neither the police nor anyone else can guarantee justice and the right to a dignified life. Police indifference to Romani residents and sympathy for the local skinhead brawlers who terrorize Roma living in the Czech town of Kadaň - all of this is leading local Romani residents to feel that a double standard applies to law and order there.  full story