Analysis: Czech political parties cleanse municipal district of “Romani garbage”

The municipal department of Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz, which is governed by
the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) together with the Ostravak (“Natives of
Ostrava”) movement, is gradually “purging” this central section of Ostrava of
“Romani garbage”. At least, that is how developer and municipal department
councilor Lukáš Semerák (Ostravak movement) expressed himself last year when
explaining his desire to purchase buildings on Přednádraží Street and his
purchase of an apartment building on Palackého Street just a few steps away.

“My only intention is for this whole locality to be raised up and for
adaptable citizens to return here. Přívoz is one of the oldest parts of Ostrava
and has a long history. Unfortunately, after the great floods of 1997, when the
Hrušov quarter was affected, Romani residents from there ended up on Přednádraží
Street. I regret that this neighborhood of Ostrava has become a garbage can,”
Semerák told news

server Novinky.cz last August.

The first garbage removal: Přednádraží

ČSSD and the Ostravaks are gradually pushing impoverished people out of
Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz, intentionally and mercilessly. The first bastion to
fall during this crusade was Přednádraží. A broken sewer line there was left
unfixed so the buildings filled up with excrement and became uninhabitable.

According to statements made at the time by the owner of 10 buildings in the
ghetto, Oldřich Roztočil, the town was pushing him into a corner because it
wanted to buy his buildings in order to create a new industrial zone there.
“They simply want to cleanse Přívoz of Romani people, and that is why they are
constantly blaming me, even though for two years I have been doing my best to
get the town to repair the sewer line. I even started repairing my buildings,
but the wastewater seeped into the basements and the ground-floor apartments, so
I halted the work,” Roztočil said.

According to this landlord, it is completely certain that support for the
entrepreneurial activities of, among others, town councilor Lukáš Semerák is
what lies behind the town’s inactivity with respect to the sewer line. Semerák
had previously expressed his interest in buying the buildings. “I refused to
sell them to him, so he is trying to get them another way, and he is certainly
not the only one,” Roztočil said.

What happened next? The Building Works Authority instructed the occupants to
move out. With the gradual departure of the tenants, metal-scavengers turned up
to complete the devastation of the buildings. Officials then condemned the
Přednádraží properties. The tenants who remained – they didn’t want to go live
in residential hotels because a dysentery epidemic was raging in those
facilities at the time and there was no other housing option available – were
advised by the town hall that they were no longer entitled to their housing
benefits. Today, of the original almost 300 residents, only 25 remain in
Přednádraží.

The second garbage removal: Palackého Street

After this, all of the buildings on Palackého Street were purged of their
tenants. Semerák did not manage to purchase the Přednádraží properties, so he
bought one of the buildings on Palackého Street nearby, where impoverished
people, predominantly Romani ones, were living, and an adjacent building was
purchased by a business colleague of his.

“We wanted to ensure a calm environment and lend a helping hand to the
management of the private Karel Engliš College, which is headquartered across
the street from our buildings and will start instruction there in September,”
Semerák said at the time. Ironically, the school will not be instructing anyone
in Ostrava this September, as it is closing its operations due to the
incompetence of its managers.

Once Semerák and his colleague had purchased the buildings, they started
“taking out the garbage”. They refused to renew short-term leases and pushed
those with open-ended leases out through other means. News server Romea.cz spoke
with a lady who claimed that she gave up her open-ended lease in a Palackého
Street property after receiving constant telephone calls threatening to kill her
children.

The third garbage removal: Božkova Street

Next, the municipal department announced it would be closing the residential
hotel on Božkova Street. The residential hotel is reportedly intended for
debtors and is managed as a transitional accommodation where tenants are
expected to stay for a maximum of six months.

"For financial reasons (an annual loss of roughly CZK 1 million), and in
order to cultivate the neighborhood, we have decided to close the residential
hotel. We will be concluding new, fixed-term leases with the tenants. Should
they fall into arrears, we will not extend their leases and we will also not be
obliged to provide them with substitute accommodation,” Jana Pondělíčková, press
spokesperson for Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz, told news server Romea.cz at the
time.

The phrase “cultivating the neighborhood” is just a more cultured way of
expressing what Semerák said in plain terms: Whatever is "uncivilized" has to
go. Where should it go? Mainly away from Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz – the
bureaucrats and politicians don’t give a damn.

The fourth garbage removal: Cihelní and Tomkova streets

Now the time has come to clear out two (and maybe three) residential hotels
on Cihelní and Tomkova streets. Municipal bureaucrats and politicians are
forcing people to move away from them through a time-tested method. The Building
Works Authority has allegedly discovered during a recent inspection that the
properties cannot be used as residential hotels. They are supposed to be used as
apartment houses (leasing whole apartments, not individual rooms) or as office
buildings.

These tenants will, like those before them, lose their housing benefit, which
means only one thing for them: Moving out. They could never pay the usurious
rents out of either their own salaries or welfare.

The closure of the residential hotels should have a positive impact, because
the living conditions in them are horrific, but their occupants need somewhere
to go so they don’t end up living under a bridge. Despite this fact, Moravská
Ostrava a Přívoz has already ruled out leasing them any of the apartments owned
by the municipal department.

"Currently, roughly 90 residential hotel tenants have received warnings from
the Labor Office that their housing benefits can be cancelled,” municipal
department Vice-Mayor Tomáš Kuřec (Czech Social Democratic Party – ČSSD) said,
adding that social workers are now addressing the people’s situations. However,
he does not agree with proposals to house the tenants in municipally-owned
apartments.

"Unfortunately, the people in those residential hotels are deeply indebted as
a result of their previous rental relationships, either with private landlords
or our own municipally-owned apartments. Our principle is not to lease
apartments to debtors,” Kuřec said. If even the Social Democrats don’t want to
break the vicious cycle of indebtedness, then who else will?

The fifth garbage removal: Throwing out the resisters

In order to make it clear how serious the ČSSD and Ostravak movement
councilors are about this gentrification, they have even evicted the Life
Together (Vzájemné soužití) association from its former office space. This
organization has long stood up against the municipal department on behalf of
local Romani people and assisted them.

"The current leadership of the municipal department of Moravská Ostrava a
Přívoz evicted us from the commercial spaces in September 2012 and gave us until
31 January 2013 to leave them. We are of the opinion that this action is a
response to the association’s engagement in the scandal at Přednádraží.
Unfortunately, this has led us to the conclusion that the Council of the
municipal department of Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz is just taking advantage of
its powerful influence, because for the entire time we have been using the
spaces at 30. dubna 1 we have never committed any wrongdoing, nor have we
violated any of the terms of the lease agreement. The empty spaces continue to
be listed by the town as available for lease as commercial premises,” Life
Together wrote in a declaration on the issue.

The organization’s legal and social counseling center, which had assisted
people for many years from the well-located premises near the Labor Office, has
now moved into spaces leased by a private firm. Otherwise it would have had to
move out of the central municipal department and people would have had to trek
God knows where to access it.

Whoever votes for anti-social parties is voting for the Communist Party of
Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM)

Moravská Ostrava a Přívoz is definitely not the only municipality doing its
best to get rid of its citizens instead of helping them. Legendary welfare
recipient Jiří Čunek became famous for this a while back, but even he wasn’t the
first.

We could also call this behavior racist, but the problem has a strong social
aspect to it. It’s not just about Romani people, but about the approach towards
impoverished people in general. The numbers of those who are the worst off are
steeply rising and, as we see, the approach of ČSSD to their problems is not
much better than that of the current government. Where has the high priest of
the Social Democrats, Lubomír Zaorálek of Ostrava, suddenly disappeared to? Why
isn’t he protesting the behavior of his fellow party members? Maybe his high
salary means he has lost sight of those below, at the very bottom.

If the KSČM win yet another seat in parliament at the expense of ČSSD, please
don’t be angry or surprised. Communists don’t get their seats because of low
turnout, they get them because of those who vote for the ČSSD, the Civic
Democrats (ODS) and TOP 09 – political parties that play right into the
communists’ hands by overlooking the problems of the most impoverished.