Racism

Monika Mihaličková: Soske ME DŽAV?! Let's contain this political cesspool!

17.9.2018 9:49 Half-truths and lies continue to be spread about Romani people in the Czech Republic. When it comes to politics, the rumor is that Romani people do not vote or that they do not want to get involved in politics.  full story

Czech court hears accused assailants of African man deny they racially abused him in any way

16.9.2018 9:29 Fans of the Sigma Olomouc football team have testified in court and denied racially abusing and assaulting a dark-skinned passenger on a tram in Prague last year as they were traveling to a match. The defendants admitted to witnessing the conclusion of the incident, but described the passenger as having threatened another fan.  full story

Czech tabloid will not be inviting ultra-right party representatives to its online debates

15.8.2018 6:42 The daily Blesk tabloid has decided not to invite any politicians from the "Freedom and Direct Democracy" (SPD) party to its candidate debates prior to the autumn elections. After the 2017 elections, reporters from the publication were not given access to the party's events, so the move is one of retaliation.  full story

videoCzech media, police accuse Romani family of inciting brawl with non-Roma at children's pool, Romea.cz first to report the Romani mother's testimony

13.8.2018 12:10 The Plivátko swimming facility in the Czech town of Dubí is probably the most famous one in the entire country right now. News server Romea.cz has reported that an apparently banal incident among some children playing at the children's pool there first sparked an argument and then a brawl between a Romani woman and a "white" woman.  full story

Czech Constitutional Court rejects complaint from neo-Nazi convicted of 2012 arson

9.8.2018 6:10 Czech Television reported on 7 August that the Czech Constitutional Court has rejected a complaint from neo-Nazi Tomáš Kopecký, who in 2012 committed arson against a residential hotel in the town of Aš where the tenants were Romani. At the time of his attack there were 18 people, eight of whom were children, in the building.  full story

Czech Police refute rumors that defecation in public pool was done by Roma - defamatory article sparked a racist wave online

7.8.2018 9:51 A wave of insults, racist posts, and vulgarities against the entire Romani community was sparked at the beginning of last week by an untruthful article written by Jan Vraný for the JV Press server in the Czech Republic. In the article he alleged that a 12-year-old Romani boy was responsible for contaminating the Brná swimming pool in the town of Ústí nad Labem.
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Eyewitnesses allege staff at Czech lake did not help Vietnamese mothers look for their children, who drowned

6.8.2018 9:50 Tragedy struck Lake Lhota near Prague in the Czech Republic last Thursday when two seven-year-old boys were lost - after two hours of searching, they were found, but it was too late. Both boys had drowned.  full story

Italy: Moroccan beaten to death, athlete of Nigerian origin attacked as fascists in the Govt spread racism

1.8.2018 11:29 Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the boss of the anti-immigrant Lega party, is facing criticism from opposition politicians for creating a hateful atmosphere in the country. In recent days Italy has witnessed a series of attacks with apparently racist motivations including Monday's attack on Daisy Osakue, an Italian athlete of Nigerian origin.  full story

LIVE BROADCAST: RomanoNet delivers protest manifesto to the Italian Embassy about Italy's racist measures against Roma

30.7.2018 13:52 Representatives of RomanoNet will deliver a protest manifesto to the Ambassador of Italy to the Czech Republic, Aldo Amati, very shortly. The organizations are protesting against the situation of Romani in Italy, where the Italian Interior Minister and leader of the ultra-right Lega group, Matteo Salvini, is demanding a census of Romani people and the application of racist policies against them.

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Amateur photo contest won with images of Romani people sparks hateful reactions on Czech internet

30.7.2018 10:06 An amateur photography competition called "One Day in Přerov" was recently organized by that town in the Czech Republic, and of the more than 20 photographs submitted, the series capturing the life of Romani people there, taken by Iris Kopplhuber of Austria, won the award. The winner was chosen by visitors to the town's website, who voted for their favorites.  full story

Romania: 900 protest recent violence against Roma in Italy and Ukraine, more demonstrations in other European countries to follow

29.7.2018 13:34 As many as 900 people assembled on Saturday, 28 July 2018 in Bucharest, Romani in front of the Italian and Ukrainian embassies to express their disagreement with many violent anti-Romani crimes and to protest antigypsyism in Europe. The assemblies were the first in a series of protests that are being realized in nine European countries.  full story

Slovak Govt Plenipotentiary for the Romani Community: Žilina is a textbook example of hate crime

27.7.2018 8:12 The recent attack on Romani people in Žilina, Slovakia, one of whom is hospitlaized with a brain hemorrhage, is a textbook example of hate crime according to the Slovak Government Plenipotentiary for the Romani Community, Ábel Ravasz (a member of the Most-Híd party), and should be prosecuted as one. The chair of the Romani Union civic association in Slovakia (ÚRS), František Tanko, says Romani people abroad and in Slovakia are outraged by the racist crime and have announced a protest march in Žilina.  full story

Italy: Court in Rome convicts four perpetrators of 2011 pogrom on Romani camp in Turin

20.7.2018 9:45 The ANSA wire service reported last week that a court in Rome, Italy found four people guilty of ethnic and racial hatred when they set fire to a Romani camp in the Vallette suburb of Turin in 2011. The appeals court in Turnin had upheld the first-instance conviction but reduced the sentences to between two and four years in prison, according to court sources.  full story

Hungarian Scouts claim they did not discriminate against Romani applicants

16.7.2018 13:52 Are disadvantaged Hungarian Roma youth who want to become Scouts now the latest victims of the transformation underway in the Hungarian social climate? A case from Borsod County has captured the attention of international media asking whether the organization, which traditionally espouses Christian values and is open to all, has turned its back on Romani applicants.  full story

German court sentences neo-Nazi to life in prison

11.7.2018 17:43 Beate Zschäpe, the main defendant in the trial of members of the National Socialist Underground, a neo-Nazi group, will spend the rest of her life in a German prison according to a sentence handed down against her today by the High Court in the state of Munich, who found her guilty of 10 murders. Deutsche-Presse Agentur reported that her co-defendant Ralf Wohlleben, who supplied the group with weapons, was given a 10-year sentence.  full story

Edita Stejskalová: OSCE should send observer missions to Ukraine regarding pogroms against Roma and monitor the police investigation

11.7.2018 9:28 Speaking on Slovak Radio's "Romani Word" (Rómské slovo) program, political scientist Edita Stejskalová said she believes the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should take action regarding the recent fatal attacks against Romani people in Ukraine by creating an observer mission to monitor the investigation of the recent pogroms against Roma there. Stejskalová reminded listeners that from 2008-2009 such attacks against Roma were perpetrated in Hungary, that police in Slovakia have attacked Romani settlements in similar ways, and that a similar neo-Nazi arson attack in the Czech Republic led to the severe burning of a Romani child, Natálka.  full story

Italy's Lombardy Region first to conduct census of Roma and Sinti, plans to raze illegal camps, Romani organizations protesting

10.7.2018 10:23 In Italy the legislature of Lombardy in the north of the country has given the green light to a discriminatory, unconstitutional census of Romani and Sinti people living in that region. Italian media report that a regional commission has been entrusted with auditing legally-established Romani settlements and that illegal ones are to be closed.  full story

Czech Police charge young woman over hateful online speech against first-graders

9.7.2018 7:29 The Czech daily Mladá fronta DNES reports that a young woman from the Tachov area has been charged in the case of the hateful, racist commentaries posted beneath a photograph of first-graders at a primary school in Teplice. If convicted she faces up to three years in prison.  full story

European Parliament: Shouting matches over Italian "census" of Roma - Járóka finds it reasonable, Post calls for a halt

8.7.2018 22:22 The European Parliament experienced a stormy debate last week over the most recent anti-Romani statements by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. The minister announced that he is planning a census of Romani people in the country and the deportation of all who do not have documents.  full story

Czech Police refuse immediate comment about extremist stickers on bus used to transport 280 arrested environmental activists

6.7.2018 14:14 A photograph of the interior of a bus used by Czech Police to transport activists arrested after a protest against surface mining for brown coal at the Bílina mine in the Most district shows that a sticker for the hatemongering Ortel band and an anti-Islam sticker with a red line crossing out a mosque were visible above the driver's seat. On 1 July police detained 280 demonstrators on suspicion of misdemeanors.  full story