United for Intercultural Action (UIA) is a European network against fascism, nationalism and racism that supports migrants and refugees and brings together more than 560 organizations in 46 European countries. The organization is currently holding its international conference in the Czech Republic, which is scheduled to end on 30 October.
When conference participants learned on Sunday evening about the anti-Romani march planned for the next day in Ostrava, they decided they wanted to travel there to show their solidarity directly to the Romani community. However, for technical reasons (sold-out trains) that was not possible.
Instead, about 60 participants in the conference from all over Europe assembled in Prague at the same time that the Ostrava demonstrations were happening for a spontaneous display of solidarity on the Old Town Square in front of the memorial bust of the 15th-century religious reformer Jan Želivský. Those demonstrating expressed their position through a brief march with banners and slogans being chanted in several languages: Černí bílí spojme síly (Black, white, together we fight), ¡No pasarán! (They shall not pass), Siamo tutti antifascisti (We are all anti-fascists), Ostrava – Stop the Nazi march now, Hoch die internationale Solidarität jetzt (Long live international solidarity now) and Vmeste protiv fašismu (Together against Fascism).
The demonstrators also carried a large poster with a long list of the Czech towns in which anti-Romani hate marches were held this year. "We want to express our solidarity with the Romani people in Ostrava and to all other Romani people in the Czech Republic," declared Eric Simon, a French anti-fascist activist.
"We gathered in front of the memorial bust of the leader of the Prague poor, Jan Želivský, to remind people that those who are marginalized and powerless have the right to human dignity and that it is worth courageously defending," said evangelical clergyman Mikuláš Vymětal, one of the Czech organizers. "This is an expression of solidarity not only with the Romani community in Ostrava against whom regular marches by right-wing extremists and populists are being organized, but also with all of the similarly endangered, marginalized groups around Europe, whether they be Jewish people, migrants, Muslims or Roma," organizer Miroslav Prokeš told the Czech News Agency and Czech Television.
The assembly ended with a minute of silence for the victims of hatred and racism in the Czech Republic and worldwide.
