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News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

Canada evidently wants to decide on visas for Czechs next Tuesday

22 October 2012
4 minute read

Negotiations between Prague and Ottawa on reintroducing visas will continue through the end of this week and the start of next week. According to diplomatic sources, Canada may make its final decision next Tuesday. The reintroduction of visas, which were lifted in 2007, is being considered due to the rising number of asylum seekers from the Czech Republic, which has involved the European Commission in the negotiations. Commission President José Barroso will discuss the issue with the Canadians on the sidelines of the G8 summit in the Italian town of L’Aquila.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout does not view the possible outcome of the diplomatic negotiations between Prague and Ottawa optimistically, however. In his view, Canada’s media policy on the issue indicates it will reintroduce visas in the end. Kohout considers the situation undignified. Should Canada introduce visas and refer to the influx of Czech Roma into the country as the reason, Kohout plans to travel to Canada himself and also wants to invite Canadian officials to the Czech Republic once again.

Today the Canadian Embassy announced Canada has so far granted asylum to a total of 132 Czech citizens during 2008 and the first four months of 2009. The Immigration and Refugee Board reviewed and settled 334 requests during that time period from Czech citizens; most requests were rejected. Of course, the authorities have only reviewed a fraction of the total of 2 581 requests filed by Czech citizens so far. Czech citizens filed the second-highest number of asylum requests in Canada during the first half of 2009. Roma complaining of discrimination are traveling to Canada en masse from the Czech Republic.

According to claims made by the former director of the Office of the Czech Government Council for Roma Community Affairs, Roman Krištof, the departure of the Roma is being organized by several people who have turned it into a business, and the asylum seekers are abusing the Canadian system. Krištof makes the claim in a report commissioned last year by the Czech state, but has refused to say who exactly commissioned and financed it. The Romea.cz web server has been informed that it was commissioned by the Czech Interior Ministry. Czech Foreign Minister Kohout intends to discuss the information that Roma emigration has become a business with Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina and Czech Human Rights and Minorities Minister Michael Kocáb over the next few days.

The claim is that the migration of Czech Roma seeking asylum in Canada is accompanied by a “client system” in which former citizens of the Czech Republic and Slovakia have a “professional and financial interest”. Karolína Bánomová of Ústí nad Labem, a former Roma Studies student at Charles University in Prague who was granted asylum in Canada in 1997, and Paul St. Clair, head of the Roma Community Center in Toronto, are directly named in the analysis commissioned by the Czech state as “prospectors” of asylum seekers. According to Krištof, Bánomová uses an “informal communications network” to let interested asylum-seekers know when it might be the right time to fly to Canada and apply for asylum. In his expert report, Krištof claims Bánomová determines this appropriate timing according to information she receives from members of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) whose confidence she enjoys.

Bánomová has already sharply protested against Krištof’s claims on the Romea.cz website, saying there is no proof of the charges, which she says are being made on the basis of a “wild theory”. Krištof claims Roma Community Center head St. Clair works as an “independent information source” for the IRB on the position of the Roma in the Czech Republic and also represents Roma asylum seekers during asylum proceedings. The IRB allocates several thousand Canadian dollars a year for such representation.

According to unofficial information, Canada wants to decide about the visas by the start of next week, but Kohout says no one has officially confirmed this information to Czech diplomats. He says Prague will continue its diplomatic pressure to convince Ottawa to keep travel between the two countries visa-free. However, Kohout sees the outcome as 65 – 70 % negative.

Czech diplomats are explaining to their Canadian partners that it would be a mistake to introduce visas. Kohout said previously that the Czechs had offered to conclude a mutual treaty with the Canadians in which both countries recognize one another as “safe countries of origin”. Such a treaty would make it impossible for Canada to grant asylum to Czech citizens. Kohout believes Canada is responding too harshly and Prague is seeking a solution which will not hold all Czech citizens liable for the situation. Kohout says they are considering, for example, introducing controls at airports and other “soft” measures as opposed to reintroducing visas. Controls at airports were used at the start of the new millennium, when Czech Roma were seeking asylum en masse in Great Britain. At that time the Czech Republic was not yet an EU Member State and London threatened to introduce visas due to the asylum seekers just as Ottawa is now.

Kohout stated earlier that if visas are introduced, the Czechs will not hesitate to request EU assistance and call for reciprocal visas to be introduced against Canada by all the EU Member States. Prague would evidently respond by introducing visas for diplomats and others on diplomatic passports.

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