New local coordinator for Czech Romanies facing many challenges

Ludmila Svecova will take up the post of Romany coordinator in the Central Bohemian town of Kladno on Wednesday, thus replacing outgoing coordinator Anton Lukac, Kladno town hall spokesman Petra Kucerova told CTK today.

In June, Lukac was embroiled in a scuffle between the guests to a Romany party with the municipal police.

One of the participants in the party attacked a municipal police officer who tried to calm them down at 2 a.m.
Lukac allegedly shouted at the police that they were racists and that he would make them sacked.
Kladno police spokeswoman Jirina Forejtova said Lukac had apologised to the police.
Most Kladno residents see co-existence with Romanies problematic.

Two people, presumable Romanies, died and three suffered severe injuries when a derelict industrial building in the Poldi Kladno crumbled on Saturday.

It has turned out that the victims were most probably illegally dismantling the abandoned building to steal iron when the building collapsed.

Anti-Romany feelings were also stirred at the end of last year, when a Romany driver killed a teenage girl in Kladno.

Lukac apologised on behalf of the Kladno Romanies to the family of the girl and condemned the driver’s not having stopped and helped her.

The Romany coordinator will also be in charge of Romany children’s school attendance.

Last October, Kladno police and municipal officers checked two buildings for rent-defaulters and found there seven children who ought to have been at school. Their parents said the kids were ill, but none of them was in bed.

"Our children are unable to lay long even if they are ill," Lukac said. However, the spokesman for the Kladno police said the children certainly had not looked like being ill.

Various NGOs also help resolve the problems of the areas mainly inhabited by Romanies. In the area Masokombinat, there are roughly 200 people. They were removed there as they owed money for rent and due to the disastrous state of their original houses.

The original house for rent-defaulters, whose complete reconstruction cost five million crowns, was entirely destroyed by their residents within a short time.

As a result, some of the Romanies were removed to special container-type buildings.

Besides, many of the Romanies illegally tap electricity and most of them live off the welfare.

Illegal collection of iron scrap and money-lending are also widespread among the Romany community, experts say.