Romové

Emílie Machálková, a Czech Romani Holocaust survivor, has passed away

19.7.2017 7:22 Emílie Machálková, a Czech Romani woman who survived the Holocaust, has passed away at the age of 90. The news was confirmed to Czech Radio by her family and reported
on 17 July.  full story

Martin Daniel, the ball hockey champion of Slovakia, is also a diabetic and a member of the Romani community

25.5.2017 6:47 There are some sports in Europe where it is difficult to find a Romani player. One of them is certainly ball hockey, which is hockey played on asphalt with a ball and without skates.  full story

Serbia: Romani couple allege police beat them and forced them to confess to insurance fraud after their car was stolen

18.5.2027 19:22 The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in Budapest reports that a married Romani couple was allegedly assaulted during a police interrogation after they called to report their automobile had been stolen. Serbian Police officers are alleged to have detained the couple for 13 hours.  full story

Czech Republic: Successful Romani hairdresser launches fashion designs

28.4.2017 8:23 Alexander Slepčík has been a hair stylist for more than 10 years and has owned his own salon for more than five. He also advises people on their clothing as a stylist.  full story

Outdoor travelling exhibition about indigenous Czech Roma and Sinti victims of the Holocaust on view in Prague

25.4.2017 7:10 The Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu - VPORH) has designed a travelling exhibition called "A Vanished World"
(Zaniklý svět), about the indigenous Czech Roma and Sinti who perished during the Holocaust, which now will be on view in several locations throughout Prague from April through October. Using rare archival materials and photographs, the exhibition presents the life of Roma and Sinti in the Czech lands prior to their imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camps.
 full story

Romani ice hockey player beats junior league record in Czech playoffs

21.4.2017 8:09 News server Hokej.cz reports that Dominik Lakatoš, the ice hockey player from Liberec who plays for the local Bílé Tygry (White Tigers) team there, has scored 13 points - eight goals and five assists - during the 14 matches of the Generali playoffs in the Tipsport Extraliga. That historical achievement beats the previous junior record for points scored during the Czech ice hockey playoffs.  full story

Park in Czech Republic's second-largest city could be named after Romani musician

18.4.2017 9:42 News server iDNES reports that Romani residents of Brno, Czech Republic are striving to have Hvězdička Park named after Romani musician Eugen Horváth. The request was filed by local assembly member Miroslav Zima, who is also the director of the DROM Romani Center in Brno.  full story

Jana Šedivcová: Are all Czech children cat killers and all Romani children flamingo killers? Collective blame is unacceptable

17.3.2017 15:03 When I heard the news that children had killed one rare flamingo and seriously harmed another at the zoo in Jihlava, it made me dizzy. I felt the same when, the next day, a video appeared "on the net" of other children in another town who almost killed a cat by hanging it.  full story

Together We Can: Jan Balog

14.2.2017 10:27 Last month, Romea.cz began publishing interviews on a weekly basis with people who are doing interesting things to aid all of us in getting along here. When we were looking for a name for this column, the motto of this year's International Romani Day, "Together We Can", inspired me, so the organizers and I have decided to call this column "Together We Can" as well.
 full story

videoCzech Republic: Romani journalists in training visited excluded localities

22.1.2017 11:53 One component of the ROMEA organization's "Media Training for Future Romani Journalists" project last year was a three-day trip into the field. Thanks to our collaboration with the organization Český západ, the trainees had the opportunity to visit several socially excluded localities around Teplá and Toužim. While accumulating information for the articles they then wrote about the broadest possible range of subjects, the trainees also had the opportunity to rehearse fundamental
skills required to be television news reporters.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani community organizes Christmas party for children's home in Jihlava

23.12.2016 17:18 Romani community members from all over the Czech Republic have organized a Christmas party for the children in a Jihlava Children's Home, most of whom are also Romani. The idea of holding the party came from Robert Tonelli, who grew up in a Children's Home himself and wanted to make the children's Christmas holiday more pleasant, as well as to give them something from the heart.  full story

Karel Holomek on the "social unconscious" and the Roma Spirit Awards

18.12.2016 22:04 This year's Roma Spirit Awards had to grapple with a lack of comprehension from an unanticipated party: From Romani people themselves. I have done my best to grasp what has happened and it took me a long time before I understood it.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani Holocaust survivors' association chair says he has no reason to doubt pig farm will go

11.11.2016 17:28 At the beginning of this week, the Czech Government approved a proposal to close the operations of the pig farm that is now located on the site of the former concentration camp at Lety by Písek and has commissioned assessments of the valuation of the land. News server Romea.cz has asked Čeněk Růžička, a member of the Czech Government Council on Romani Community Affairs and chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Romani Holocaust in the Czech Republic (VPORH), how he views recent developments around the pig farm, which he has long striven to remove.  full story

Czech politician and sports figure convicted of buying Romani votes

11.11.2016 10:30 The former Deputy Mayor of Most, Hana Jeníčková, was sentenced on Monday, 7 November 2016 to eight months in prison, conditionally postponed for one year, for obstructing the preparation and conduct of the municipal elections there in 2014. The same punishment was handed down against the former director of the sports hall in Most, Jan Hašek.  full story

videoCzech Republic: Romani woman who saved five lives four years ago lives in a shelter because no one will rent to her

7.11.2016 15:54 "I still remember what happened back then, I frequently discuss it with my friends... or I sometimes jerk awake when I'm asleep and dreaming about the water. It's better now, though," says Irena Drevňáková, the Romani woman who did not hesitate four years ago to save the lives of several people who were in a car crash.  full story

Martin Dudi: I want to become a teacher or work with children from poor families

5.10.2016 14:52 Martin Dudi is a 22-year-old Romani student from Písek who comes from a family that does its best to uphold Romani customs and traditions and even still speaks the Romanes language. Until the age of three he only spoke Romanes at home, and he did not begin to use Czech until he went to preschool.  full story

"Roma Rising" exhibition featuring portraits of Roma from Czech Republic to open in Kladno

13.9.2016 7:12 On Thursday, 15 September at 17:00 the exhibition "Roma Rising" will open at the Sládečkovo Vlastivědné Muzeum (the Sládeček Museum of Local History) in the Czech town of Kladno and will remain on view until 27 November 2016. The exhibition features portraits of Roma from the Czech Republic who have managed to make it in mainstream society and honors their bravery and determination.  full story

Commentary: Polish reporter will discuss her book about Roma this week in Prague and Plzeň

11.9.2016 17:15 Polish reporters are known even beyond the country's borders, and currently their readership is growing more and more. Their success consists, among other things, in their imaginative use of the wide range of material that this particular genre, which lies on the border between journalism and literature, undoubtedly offers.  full story

Jan Kudry: Let's not punish Romani children for their parents' errors

29.2.2016 23:18 Jan Kudry is from Postoloprty, Czech Republic. Last year he defended his dissertation at Charles University's Faculty of Pedagogy. He works as an investigator for the Criminal Police and Detective Services in the town of Beroun and is an external instructor at Svatojanská College in the town of Svatý Jan pod Skalou. He is also a member of the Czech Government Inter-ministerial Commission on Roma Community Affairs.  full story

Czech expert says Krásná Lípa school committed segregation and probably discrimination as well

26.2.2016 15:42 Klára Laurenčíková, an expert on inclusive education, has commented on the results of an investigation by the Czech School Inspection into complaints of segregation at a primary school in Krásná Lípa on which news server Romea.cz has been reporting. She believes that by creating a "Romani class", the school has committed segregation at the very least and may have also committed discrimination.  full story