U.N. criticises Czechs for segregation of Romanies at school

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has criticised the Czech Republic for continuing latent segregation of Romanies at elementary schools and for not compensating unlawful sterilisation of women in its latest report available to CTK today.

The U.N. report was released in Geneva on Thursday evening and handed to CTK by the Czech Human Rights League.

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Complete text of the report in english

The U.N. calls on the Czech Republic to establish an independent body that would deal with complaints against steps taken by the police. People mainly complained police dealt with them badly during their arrest and custody.

The U.N. highlighted the problem already before, but the government has not established any such body.

As for sterilisations, the committee recommends that legal assistance to its victims be provided.

The report indicates that special schools for slow pupils where Romanies were often sent were cancelled only formally and that Romany pupils continue to be segregated at Czech elementary schools.

The government should adopt measures to improve the unhappy situation, the report writes.

It also criticises the use of caged beds in mental hospitals. Caged beds should be banned by law, it says. Moreover, Czech doctors and social workers should compulsorily undergo training on human rights of the patients.

The U.N. committee expressed concern about the fact that persons may be hospitalised against their will in the country only because they "demonstrate signs of a mental illness."

The committee repeatedly pointed to the cases of Czechs who had been forced to leave the country and had acquired the citizenship of their new home country and Czech courts rejected their restitution claims.

It says the Czech Republic discriminated against many of these people and should return their property or compensate them.

The Czech Human Rights League and the Lawyers’ centre for mentally disabled will hold a press conference on the report and the situation in the country on Monday, July 30.