Commentary: The fox in the henhouse, or, the Czech Republic on the UN Human Rights Council

The Czech Republic has won a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the next three years. The country received 148 of 191 votes in a secret ballot and will take up its seat on 18 June.

The UN Human Rights Council was created on 15 March 2006 as a successor to the UN Human Rights Commission and reports directly to the UN General Assembly, giving it a higher status than the Commission once held. The recent position of the UN Human Rights Council on events in Libya, for example, opened the way for the UN Security Council resolution that facilitated the air assault on that country. Membership on the council lasts three years and each member state can only be elected to a maximum of two concurrent terms. The main aim of the UN Human Rights Council is to advocate for and protect human rights worldwide.

The main tool for human rights protection is the International Bill of Human Rights. Unlike the previous Universal Declaration of 10 December 1948, this document includes protections for children, mentally and physically disabled people, migrant workers, women, and other vulnerable groups. A basic pillar of this document is the belief in the dignity and uniqueness of human beings, in equal rights for men and women, in fundamental human rights, in nations large and small, and in respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people irrespective of confession, language, race or sex.

In its foreign policy, the Czech Republic places great emphasis on upholding human rights. It has included among its priorities an effort to create norms that would exclude or prevent countries violating human rights from joining the UN Human Rights Council, norms that would require a more strict response to cases of human rights violations. For example, communist Cuba currently has a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

Czech diplomacy really deserves our thanks for managing to deceive, in such a hypocritical way, all of the countries that voted for it. On the one hand Czech diplomats talk about countries that don’t uphold human rights, and on the other hand they are being confronted by Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, who recently subjected the Czech Government and practically all of Czech society to tough criticism precisely because of the country’s failure to uphold the human rights of minorities – Roma people, to be precise.

For example, the Government of the Czech Republic – and indirectly, all of society – has not yet admitted its share of the blame or managed to somehow grapple with the results of the violence that has been committed against Roma people here. Proof of this disrespect for Roma people is that a pig farm still stands at Lety by Písek, a site of Roma suffering during the Holocaust. This is one example of Czech society’s deeply-rooted abhorrence of and intolerance for Roma people and for the children, elderly, men and women who were murdered at Lety. The total number of Roma people murdered in Europe during WWII is estimated at 1 500 000. Only approximately 600 Roma people survived the genocide on Czech territory.

Today the position of Roma people has significantly deteriorated, as various pieces of research and studies have proven. The majority of Czech society suffers from anti-Gypsyism and feels antipathy for Roma people, and these feelings prevail in government structures, including among people in the highest offices. The current right-wing government refuses to communicate with Roma people, as we have learned from Karel Holomek’s recent resignation from the Government Inter-ministerial Commission for Roma Community Affairs. Czech politicians such as Jiří Šulc and Luděk Kvapil brazenly and publicly disseminate racist contributions on their Facebook pages, or propose bills designed to somehow bring the socially most vulnerable groups in society to account – primarily defenseless children, people who make less than minimum wage, people who are mentally or physically disabled, retirees, Roma people, and women on maternity leave.

Such displays by politicians merely confirm the public in its sense that today it is perfectly legal to speak about minorities, about Roma people, pejoratively. Where Roma people are concerned, the Government guarantees IMPUNITY to all majority-society citizens who violate Roma people’s dignity and uniqueness as human beings and their human rights. In such cases, it fails to uphold those rights.

This Government and its policies not only fail to uphold the Constitution, but have literally overthrown human rights and the right to equal opportunity for most citizens. Take equal opportunity, for example. The Government has divided society into the poor and the rich. The poor are not entitled to quality health care because they are not high earners and can’t afford it. Maybe if the whole nation were elected to Parliament we could all afford our own health care – but then how would the powerful keep wages down so they could continue their personal hoarding? Who produces value in this state? Yes, it’s those people who can’t get quality health care. They work themselves to death and may not live to see their retirement benefits – and even though they paid into that retirement, it can’t be passed down to their heirs. That would be above-standard.

This Government has made no effort to uphold human rights on its own territory. It is fundamentally not advocating for the integration of Roma people into society, it makes no effort to ensure equality to all citizens, and in that respect it does not have the moral right to dictate to other countries on human rights at meetings of the UN Human Rights Council. To put it in global perspective, the position of a certain part of the population in the Czech Republic, a land with one of the highest standards of living in the world, is now comparable to that of people living in some states of Africa.