Vojtěch Lavička

Czech commemoration of Holocaust at Terezín Memorial will again not feature the Romani flag

18.5.2018 17:58 The traditional commemorative ceremony held by the Terezín Memorial will be held on Sunday at the National Cemetery in front of the Small Fortress, and several Romani activists will again have a bitter taste in their mouths about it. On the basis of an initiative by the Konexe association two years ago, 14 pro-Roma and Roma nonprofit organizations including ARA ART, ROMEA and Slovo 21 pointed out that the Romani flag is not flown at the memorial during the annual commemoration ceremony alongside the flags of the other nations whose members fell victim to Nazi persecution.  full story

videoMichal Miko to the Czech Regional Development Minister: Live in a container yourself and then we'll see what you think of it

21.4.2018 11:51 The proposal of the Czech Regional Development Minister to build 55 000 "container" units of housing has outraged various civic activists. Michal Miko, project coordinator for the Slovo 21, z.s. NGO, has taken an unequivocally negative stance on the issue: "The fact that the Government wants to adopt a law making it possible to build 'container' apartment units is unacceptable to me as a civic activist."  full story

Traffickers in poverty in the Czech Republic have a new trick for not losing their profitable business model

14.4.2018 20:34 Real estate speculators in the Czech Republic who charge high rents for dilapidated apartment units in socially excluded localities do not intend to lose their profitable "enterprises". They are selling apartment units in places where local councils have decided not to disburse housing benefits to their impoverished tenants and are buying other units in localities where the state housing benefit is not limited.  full story

Controversial Czech housing estate in the hands of foreign nationals: Russians big fans of trafficking in poverty there

30.3.2018 12:45 Buying cheap arpartment units at the Janov housing estate has become a lucrative new enterprise for many foreign nationals. Israelis, Russians, Slovaks and Ukrainians, according to news server Seznam.cz, own more than one-third of the units in some apartment buildings there.  full story

Czech Justice Minister: State has no solution for social exclusion, Romani children not on an equal footing with others

13.3.2018 6:18 Speaking in an interview for ROMEA TV, Czech Justice Minister Robert Pelikán (ANO) said the state has not yet managed to introduce even a hint of a solution for addressing the problems that arise in socially excluded localities. "This is a big problem for the people living in such localities, but it is also a problem for those living nearby," he said.  full story