Czech Romany family to lose home

The Tulej Romany family that the Town Hall of the north Moravian Vsetin had moved to a dilapidated family house in Cechy pod Kosirem will lose roof over their heads, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes writes in its central Moravian edition today.

The South Moravian regional authority has recently rejected the complaint by the house owner against the demolition ordered by the construction office this summer.

The Tulej family are still officially residents of Vsetin and they have asked the Vsetin Town Hall for a municipal flat. However, the Town Hall said it had no substitute housing for the family, the paper writes.

"The decision on the demolition of the house has taken effect and should be materialised. The house owner filed his complaint belatedly and we thus rejected it," Hana Mazurova from the regional office said.

In practice this means that the condition of the dilapidated house has been found unsafe and it should be demolished by the end of this year, the paper says.
House owner Marian Budinsky from Hodonin, south Moravia, who was the Vsetin Town Hall mediator in its search for substitute housing for Vsetin Romanies, confirmed that he would demolish the house.

I will have to do so. I will abide by the law," Budinsky said.

The Tulej family is desperate and wants to return to Vsetin.

"We really do not know where we will go. We might put up a tent in front of the Town Hall, but we will not be able to survive winter in it," Jolana Tulejova said.
In addition, electricity in their flat was cut off a month ago though the family paid charges. There are 12 people living in the house including infants.
Lawyer Tamara Vranova has filed a criminal complaint against the electricity cut.

Czech minister in charge of minorities and human rights Dzamila Stehlikova (junior governing Green Party, SZ) has also dealt with the family situation.
The Tulejs are one of the Romany families that were evicted from their homes in Vsetin and moved outside the town when Jiri Cunek, head of the junior ruling Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), was its mayor last year.

Some Romany rent-defaulters were moved from a dilapidated house in the centre of Vsetin to a new house made with tin container-like flats on Vsetin’s outskirts, while other Romany families, including the Tulejs, were sent away from Vsetin and resettled elsewhere in Moravia.

These steps were sharply criticised by Romany organisations and other human rights activists. Ombudsman Otakar Motejl concluded that the Town Hall had made mistakes in resettling Romanies from the centre.

The police shelved the case, saying that Cunek did not violate law.

Senator Cunek recently resigned as Czech deputy PM and local development minister from the government over the re-opening of the case of his alleged corruption.