Komunismus

Commentary: The thorny path of Romani emancipation from Czechoslovakia to today's Czech Republic

2.11.2018 12:43 It has been 50 years since I first encountered the call for Romani emancipation. I was in Paris when the "fraternal" Warsaw Pact armies occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968, and after arriving back home by train to Prague's Smíchov station, I went into the restaurant there.  full story

Researcher seeks US veterans and others with information about Romani WWII veteran from Czechoslovakia

22.2.2017 14:19 It all began with an interview filmed by Czech Radio during a panel discussion on Roma Genocide Remembrance Day last summer. One participant, a Romani woman, was there to speak about her family and their fate during the Second World War, and she recalled her uncle, Imrich Horváth, telling her how he fought for the freedom of his homeland, first in the ranks of the Soviet Army (for example, during the Battle of the Dukla Pass) and then how, as a scout, he made it across the front lines to the US Army.  full story

UN Committee tells Czech Republic: Compensate victims of forced sterilization and punish those responsible

11.3.2016 17:49 For the purpose of improving the position of women in the Czech Republic, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) issued its Concluding Observations to the Czech Republic on 7 March, based on the Czech Government's Sixth Periodic Report to the Committee on upholding the UN Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination against Women. A delegation from the Czech Republic defended that report before the Committee in Geneva on 23 February.  full story

Fedor Gál: Czech President should not go to Moscow

21.3.2015 20:06, (ROMEA) In an interview for the Czech News Agency, Slovak sociologist and former dissident Fedor Gál, who celebrated his 70th birthday yesterday, said that nostalgic recollections of the communist era 25 years after the fall of the regime are incomprehensible to him. The founding member of the "Public against Violence" movement said he also does not understand why people hate the politicians them themselves elect.  full story

Czech exhibition maps little-known history of those who survived Nazi concentration camps

Prague, 27.2.2015 0:06, (ROMEA) A new exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Prague shows postwar Czechoslovakia as a crossroads for thousands of homeless Jewish people who fled pogroms after the end of the Second World War or headed to Palestine and the West. The exhibition opened today at the Robert Guttman Gallery on U Staré školy Street in Prague and will be there until 23 August 2015.  full story

German court bans counter-intelligence from following ultra-left MP

Berlin, 11.9.2014 1:44, (ROMEA) German weekly Der Spiegel reports that the German Administrative Court has banned the country's counter-intelligence forces from following ultra-left politician Gregor Gysi. All of the information collected on him to date must be destroyed.  full story

Czech Republic: Death of Milada Horáková commemorated

Prague, 26.6.2014 22:59, (ROMEA) People are gathering at several locations in Prague today to commemorate the judicial murder of Czechoslovak politician Milada Horáková. She was executed 64 years ago on 27 June.  full story

65th anniversary of Czechoslovak Communists' execution of general who knew too much

Prague, 20.6.2014 22:56, (ROMEA) Tomorrow will mark 65 years since the Communists executed General Heliodor Píka in the town of Plzeň. A memorial service for Píka was held today in front of the building of the General Staff and attended by Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnický and Chief of Staff Petr Pavel.  full story

Czech political prisoners of communism say the Jáchymov concentration camp must be remembered

Jáchymov, 4.6.2014 22:18, (ROMEA) Former political prisoners in the Czech Republic have gathered for the 25th time to commemorate the horrors undergone during the 1950s in the concentration camps at Jáchymov and other uranium mines by thousands of people considered subversives by the communist regime. Speaking in front of the Church of St. Jáchym, Vladimír Chlupáč, who was imprisoned for 9.5 years in Jáchymov, said young people must be constantly reminded of the hell of what went on there, as it is a national disgrace.  full story

Hungary: Ex-Interior Minister convicted of death of dozens of anti-communist fighters

Budapest, 14.5.2014 18:14, (ROMEA) Béla Biszku (age 92), the former Hungarian Interior Minister during communism, has been convicted of war crimes. A court in Hungary today sentenced him to five and a half years in prison.  full story

Czech activist donates his Third Resistance compensation to Roma

Prague, 14.5.2014 17:14, (ROMEA) Stanislav Penc has refused to attend an award ceremony honoring those who participated in the Third Resistance, where he would have received an award from Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnický. Penc said he believes advocates of the communist regime remain in high office today and the perpetrators of injustice from that time have not yet been punished.  full story

Czech politicians, survivors honor memory of victims of Communism

Prague, 10.5.2014 18:47, (ROMEA) Politicians and survivors honored the memory of the victims of the Communist regime at a cemetery in the Motol quarter of Prague today. Those attending called on people not to forget the harms caused by the totalitarian era.  full story

Karel Holomek: What democracy and freedom mean to me

Brno, 17.11.2013 15:29, (ROMEA) For me, democracy and freedom mean the opportunity to express my opinions on public affairs and to participate in them. When I express my opinions to the public, I don't feel restricted by anything other than the accuracy of my statements, which can be critical of abuses in society and eventually of those who personify those abuses, such as people in politics, including at the highest levels, and in public offices.  full story