Central European artists and politicians call for solidarity with migrants

Agence France-Presse (AFP) and the Associated Press (AP) report that Czech film director Jiří Menzel and former Czech Prime Minister Petr Pithart are among hundreds of artists and politicians from Central Europe who have called on the citizens and representatives of their countries to demonstrate solidarity with migrants. The AFP reports that Central European citizens frequently are antagonistic and sometimes hostile towards migrants coming to Europe.

 

According to those who have signed the letter, a "humanitarian catastrophe" is underway. "We cannot respond to this catastrophe just by disapproving of it. Our common Europe was built on the basis of solidarity. We cannot give up now on our shared responsibility for the EU by averting our gaze from the misfortune of these people and the situations in the countries where this rising tide of migration originates," the AFP cites the "Letter from Central Europe" as saying.  

"It’s not so long ago that we, too, were knocking on the door (of the EU)," the letter reads. In addition to Menzel and Pithart, the signatories include Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova, former Polish Presidents Bronislaw Komorowski and Aleksander Kwasniewski, and other figures from the Baltics, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.