Czech Republic: Poll shows mostly negative views of Romani people

Most of the Czech public (71 %) holds a negative view of Romani people, a proportion of the population that has slightly fallen since April of this year. On the question of whether those polled fear Romani people, the public is divided into almost completely equal camps (43 % are afraid of Romani people, 44 % are not). Not quite one-fifth of the citizens polled (16 %) expressed sympathy for movements or people who use violence against members of the Romani minority. On the other hand, a two-thirds majority claimed to reject such behavior. Since last year the number of people representing that opinion has significantly risen.

These are results from the latest research conducted by the STEM agency. The poll was conducted among a representative sample (1 062 respondents) of inhabitants of the Czech Republic older than 18 years of age and took place from 27 October – 5 November 2012. Respondents were chosen by the quota selection method.

This latest research shows that most of the Czech population still holds a negative opinion of the Romani minority. One-third of the citizens expressed a "somewhat negative" opinion of Romani people (34 %), one-quarter admitted to an "unequivocally negative" opinion (26 %) and one-tenth of the citizens even "loathe" Romani people. Only 5 % of people said they have a "good" or "very good" opinion of Romani people. One-fifth of the respondents (20 %) had no need to express themselves either negatively or positively toward Romani people and say they have the same opinion about them as about anyone else.