by Michael Smith
On Sunday, March 15, 2009 some 60 supporters and representatives of the Czech extreme right Workers' Party (DS) marched through the Janov housing estate which is predominantly inhabited by Romanies. No incidents have been reported, according to the police, who monitored the action and who detained two persons. One of them was unlawfully sticking up posters before the event.
The march was intended to intimidate the Romanies living in the housing estate and toi this extent the DS definitely succeeded for Rom resident there were afraid to set foot into the street, so we have ben told, on that very Sunday.
The extremists also presented their shadow mayor of the town. His appointment is an expression of the DS's disagreement with how the Litvinov town hall deals with the situation in Janov, the party says. This shadow mayor is Vladan Renak, 33, a secondary school language teacher, who is not a DS member. He says he believes that nothing would change in the town without the DS. The town is ill, he said, the treatment will be long, but radical and effective.
That can, I am sure, only mean one thing and that is that the DS and this shadow mayor want to remove and expel the Romanies from Janov.
Litvinov's mayor Milan Stovicek said the that DS sponges on the housing estate's problems that the town hall has been solving for some time already.
According to its web page, the DS espouses national socialism and rejects capitalism and communism.
After one of the DS's actions in Litvinov last year, its participants marched to Janov. The event ended in hard clashes between hundreds of rightist radicals and police officers, leaving behind several injured people on both sides.
Some 6000 people live at Janov, where socially weak people were moved to from various parts of the country. Many are unemployed and indebted.
The government wanted the DS to be banned, but the Supreme Administrative Court decided early this month that the evidence the government presented was inconclusive and dismissed the proposal.
We must not forget that this is the supreme court in the very country that also was advocating the creation of Gypsy ghettos with police guards at the only way in or out, claimed to be “in order to protect the Rom from Nazis”.
And, just like in Italy and Hungary, both EU countries, the EU sits idly by and does absolutely nothing. Why is that, one can but wonder.
© M Smith (Veshengro), 2009
<>
Showing posts with label Romanies in the Czech Republic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romanies in the Czech Republic. Show all posts
Minister pledges more funds for Janov ghetto
by Michael Smith
Czech Republic: Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Džamila Stehlíková visited Litvínov, the north Bohemian town that recently witnessed two riots of right-wing radicals protesting against the local Romani community.
At the meeting with councilors and representatives of Janov inhabitants, Minister Stehlíková promised help in the near future. She said she would propose the cabinet to include Janov in the list of excluded localities that are entitled to get additional funding for crime prevention and social street workers.
"I apologized to the local people because two years ago I promised Janov would be the number one on the list of the excluded localities that are helped by the “Agency for social inclusion of Romany”. I see it has not happened and I admit it is a mistake," said Stehlíková to journalists. "I want to correct that," she added.
The atmosphere in Janov is currently extremely tense. The locals have been long complaining about the Roma community. Their voices of concern being unheard, they joined the ranks of the extremists on the ominous day of November 17.
But the Czechs in general all complain about the Romanies, whether recent arrivals or not. This has been borne out by studies where the majority of Czechs say that they would not want to have Gypsies as neighbors and that they'd rather have vermin (according to what has been said) than Roma living next to them and they would not want their children to go to the same school as Gypsy children.
The latter is not something that is only happening in the Czech Republic, obviously. It also is the same in Britain even where locals often have a problem, in their minds, with their children and children of the Romani community, being in the same school. Parents have known to have taken their children out of schools here when Gypsy children arrived in those schools.
The recent wave of Romany moving in Janov come allegedly from eastern Slovakia.
"The people that have come to Janov in the past few years are extremely socially deprived. They have entirely different values than the Romani that came to Janov four years ago," Miroslav Brož of the People in Need foundation said.
They are often in big debts, added Brož, they are unemployable owing to a low qualification, frustrated, deprived and aggressive.
So what went wrong? A few years ago, the Litvínov town hall sold flats to real estates that used them for moving in people from lucrative areas. These were mostly Romany who were often unemployed and incapable to pay rent.
"We used to live here quite peacefully with the first Roma people who came here a long time ago. But with the new ones, there are constantly some problems," says a former inhabitant of Janov.
Well, here we have it again. It is obviously the Gypsies that are at fault, as always. At least as far as the locals and the majority non-Gypsies, including the governments, are concerned.
Who, one can but wonder is going to get the funds the minister promised and what are those funds are going to be used for.
The way I perceive it is that the Czech Republic is doing its utmost to get the Romani to leave the country and many of those from Janov have already indicated that they may move to the West, to other EU countries.
Call me a cynic but I have a very strange feeling about all of this. Is this all a concerted effort to cause problems for the Rom community all over the EU in order for the authorities then to have a reason to act against the Rom in a manner similar to what has been done and proposed in Italy and elsewhere? One can but wonder, methinks.
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
Czech Republic: Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Džamila Stehlíková visited Litvínov, the north Bohemian town that recently witnessed two riots of right-wing radicals protesting against the local Romani community.
At the meeting with councilors and representatives of Janov inhabitants, Minister Stehlíková promised help in the near future. She said she would propose the cabinet to include Janov in the list of excluded localities that are entitled to get additional funding for crime prevention and social street workers.
"I apologized to the local people because two years ago I promised Janov would be the number one on the list of the excluded localities that are helped by the “Agency for social inclusion of Romany”. I see it has not happened and I admit it is a mistake," said Stehlíková to journalists. "I want to correct that," she added.
The atmosphere in Janov is currently extremely tense. The locals have been long complaining about the Roma community. Their voices of concern being unheard, they joined the ranks of the extremists on the ominous day of November 17.
But the Czechs in general all complain about the Romanies, whether recent arrivals or not. This has been borne out by studies where the majority of Czechs say that they would not want to have Gypsies as neighbors and that they'd rather have vermin (according to what has been said) than Roma living next to them and they would not want their children to go to the same school as Gypsy children.
The latter is not something that is only happening in the Czech Republic, obviously. It also is the same in Britain even where locals often have a problem, in their minds, with their children and children of the Romani community, being in the same school. Parents have known to have taken their children out of schools here when Gypsy children arrived in those schools.
The recent wave of Romany moving in Janov come allegedly from eastern Slovakia.
"The people that have come to Janov in the past few years are extremely socially deprived. They have entirely different values than the Romani that came to Janov four years ago," Miroslav Brož of the People in Need foundation said.
They are often in big debts, added Brož, they are unemployable owing to a low qualification, frustrated, deprived and aggressive.
So what went wrong? A few years ago, the Litvínov town hall sold flats to real estates that used them for moving in people from lucrative areas. These were mostly Romany who were often unemployed and incapable to pay rent.
"We used to live here quite peacefully with the first Roma people who came here a long time ago. But with the new ones, there are constantly some problems," says a former inhabitant of Janov.
Well, here we have it again. It is obviously the Gypsies that are at fault, as always. At least as far as the locals and the majority non-Gypsies, including the governments, are concerned.
Who, one can but wonder is going to get the funds the minister promised and what are those funds are going to be used for.
The way I perceive it is that the Czech Republic is doing its utmost to get the Romani to leave the country and many of those from Janov have already indicated that they may move to the West, to other EU countries.
Call me a cynic but I have a very strange feeling about all of this. Is this all a concerted effort to cause problems for the Rom community all over the EU in order for the authorities then to have a reason to act against the Rom in a manner similar to what has been done and proposed in Italy and elsewhere? One can but wonder, methinks.
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
Pressure to ban Czech far-right group after rioting
by Michael Smith
The Czech government has come under pressure to ban extremist groups after more than 500 supporters of the far-right Workers’ Party fought running battles with police who blocked their attempt to march through an area populated predominately by Romanies.
At least 14 people were injured and 15 arrested when police confronted about 700 marchers in the northern Czech town of Litvinov on Monday, a public holiday marking both the 1939 Nazi clampdown on Czechoslovak universities and the 1989 student protest that sparked the Velvet Revolution, which ended decades of communist rule in the central European country.
About 1,000 police using tear gas and water cannon, and supported by armoured vehicles and a helicopter, clashed with Workers’ Party supporters wielding bricks, sticks and petrol bombs when they tried to enter a large Gypsy neighbourhood.
“The police tried to get the demonstrators back to the planned march route but they started throwing flaming bottles,” said police spokeswoman Jarmila Hrubesova.
Fighting spread through the back streets of Litvinov as police pursued small groups of far-right marchers and prevented them coming into contact with about 300 Roma men who had gathered to defend their part of town.
“We discovered weapons – sticks, guns, pitchforks, machetes and other things – in the cars of extremists and also Roma people,” said police spokesman Vladimir Danyluk, after what was the second confrontation in a month between right-wing demonstrators and police in the town.
Obviously, they had to mention that they found also weapons with the Romanies; maybe they can now claim that it is really the Gypsies that are at fault here and not the Fascists. It certainly would not surprise me.
A number of leading Czech newspapers called for a crackdown on far-right groups, criticised local authorities for authorising such rallies, and urged police to stop supporters of the Workers’ Party gathering in large groups. Under pressure from human rights groups, interior minister Ivan Langer has discussed banning the party.
This idea has, in the meantime, been forgotten again, however, and the ministers have claimed that in the interest of freedom of speech and freedom of expression a ban would be counterproductive.
Roma communities are a common target for far-right groups across eastern Europe and the Balkans, where they endure very poor levels of employment, housing, education and healthcare and are widely seen as a major source of crime. In Hungary in early November 2008, two Gypsies were shot dead and their home burned down in a what can only be described as a racist murder.
Now, in the last days of November 2008, a Romani couple was murdered by a hand grenade having been thrown into their modest home while they were sitting watching TV. The children, who were already in bed were unhurt.
But when Gypsies then flee to other countries asking for political asylum they are claimed to be economic migrants and not real refugees.
In Hungary, as well as in the former Czechoslovakia and even in Italy, police have been known to stand idly by while extremists have attacked Gypsy men, women and children. So, what are the Romanies to do?
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
The Czech government has come under pressure to ban extremist groups after more than 500 supporters of the far-right Workers’ Party fought running battles with police who blocked their attempt to march through an area populated predominately by Romanies.
At least 14 people were injured and 15 arrested when police confronted about 700 marchers in the northern Czech town of Litvinov on Monday, a public holiday marking both the 1939 Nazi clampdown on Czechoslovak universities and the 1989 student protest that sparked the Velvet Revolution, which ended decades of communist rule in the central European country.
About 1,000 police using tear gas and water cannon, and supported by armoured vehicles and a helicopter, clashed with Workers’ Party supporters wielding bricks, sticks and petrol bombs when they tried to enter a large Gypsy neighbourhood.
“The police tried to get the demonstrators back to the planned march route but they started throwing flaming bottles,” said police spokeswoman Jarmila Hrubesova.
Fighting spread through the back streets of Litvinov as police pursued small groups of far-right marchers and prevented them coming into contact with about 300 Roma men who had gathered to defend their part of town.
“We discovered weapons – sticks, guns, pitchforks, machetes and other things – in the cars of extremists and also Roma people,” said police spokesman Vladimir Danyluk, after what was the second confrontation in a month between right-wing demonstrators and police in the town.
Obviously, they had to mention that they found also weapons with the Romanies; maybe they can now claim that it is really the Gypsies that are at fault here and not the Fascists. It certainly would not surprise me.
A number of leading Czech newspapers called for a crackdown on far-right groups, criticised local authorities for authorising such rallies, and urged police to stop supporters of the Workers’ Party gathering in large groups. Under pressure from human rights groups, interior minister Ivan Langer has discussed banning the party.
This idea has, in the meantime, been forgotten again, however, and the ministers have claimed that in the interest of freedom of speech and freedom of expression a ban would be counterproductive.
Roma communities are a common target for far-right groups across eastern Europe and the Balkans, where they endure very poor levels of employment, housing, education and healthcare and are widely seen as a major source of crime. In Hungary in early November 2008, two Gypsies were shot dead and their home burned down in a what can only be described as a racist murder.
Now, in the last days of November 2008, a Romani couple was murdered by a hand grenade having been thrown into their modest home while they were sitting watching TV. The children, who were already in bed were unhurt.
But when Gypsies then flee to other countries asking for political asylum they are claimed to be economic migrants and not real refugees.
In Hungary, as well as in the former Czechoslovakia and even in Italy, police have been known to stand idly by while extremists have attacked Gypsy men, women and children. So, what are the Romanies to do?
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
Higher court overturns previous ruling in Gypsy sterilization case
by Michael Smith
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, November 2008: A hospital does not have to compensate a young Gypsy woman it sterilized without her consent, an appeals court ruled recently.
In overturning the Czech Republic's first monetary award for forced sterilization, the court said the statute of limitations had expired.
This is not surprising seeing the people are concerned are people without a real voice. They are not Jews or Muslims but they are simply poor downtrodden Romani-Gypsy.
While Anti-Semitism is immediately jumped upon and nowadays also anything that is said against Muslims, so it would appear, Anti-Gypsy-ism is alive and well and no one cares, especially no one in the various bodies of the EU and the UN.
While there would be, I am sure, no one mentioning “statutes of limitation” had this heinous crime of forcible sterilization been committed against a Jewess or a member of any other ethnic group and the outcry would be great, as it is only Gypsies no one cares.
Human rights groups believe hundreds of women from the Czech Republic's Gypsy minority of about 250,000 people were sterilized against their will.
Under communism, which ended in the Czech Republic in 1989, sterilization was a semiofficial tool to limit the population of Gypsies, whose large families were seen as a burden on the state. The practice, however, ended only recently.
In other words, Gypsy women were still forced or or otherwise sterilized without their consent even into the time of EU membership of the Czech Republic. So, at least, it appears.
How, pray, was the Czech Republic, in the same way as other newer EU member states, ever allowed to join the EU with such appalling records on human rights, as far as one of the largest ethnic minorities on its territory?
Iveta Cervenakova, now 32, was illegally sterilized without her consent in 1997 after she gave birth to her second daughter by Caesarean section.
She filed a lawsuit in 2005. A lower court ruled two years later that the hospital in the northeastern city of Ostrava had to pay compensation and apologize for violating her rights.
Court spokesman Petr Angyalossy said the 500,000 Krona ($26,330) judgment was overturned because the award came after the 3-year statute of limitations in the case had expired. He said the hospital needs only apologize.
Neither an apology nor financial compensation, in all honesty, can compensate any Gypsy woman for the loss of being able to bear any (more) children. Nor can anyone ever compensate the woman nor the People as a whole for such crimes. Neither money nor apology will cut any ice. Not until such a time that the Romani People will be given the same respect and consideration as other minorities.
The Czech League for Human Rights sharply criticized the ruling and said it would appeal it to the Supreme Court. A lawyer of the League for Human Rights, who consulted with Cervenakova's attorney, said she will argue that there should be no statute of limitation applied in sterilization cases.
Several other Czech Gypsy women are also seeking damages from hospitals for illegal sterilizations. Not that they will get anywhere with this, I am sure, seeing the recent outcome. The European Union also is not in the least interested as to what happens to the Romani People, and this is blatantly obvious as to the happenings in Italy – that are all being but kept very quiet now.
Any Rom who still believes that the EU and/or the UN have the interests of the Romani People also at heart need to wake up, finally.
No one will every have our People's interests at heart if we, the Romani People, do not do it for ourselves. Ourselves Alone.
Ava Ame Shai! Yes, We Can!
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, November 2008: A hospital does not have to compensate a young Gypsy woman it sterilized without her consent, an appeals court ruled recently.
In overturning the Czech Republic's first monetary award for forced sterilization, the court said the statute of limitations had expired.
This is not surprising seeing the people are concerned are people without a real voice. They are not Jews or Muslims but they are simply poor downtrodden Romani-Gypsy.
While Anti-Semitism is immediately jumped upon and nowadays also anything that is said against Muslims, so it would appear, Anti-Gypsy-ism is alive and well and no one cares, especially no one in the various bodies of the EU and the UN.
While there would be, I am sure, no one mentioning “statutes of limitation” had this heinous crime of forcible sterilization been committed against a Jewess or a member of any other ethnic group and the outcry would be great, as it is only Gypsies no one cares.
Human rights groups believe hundreds of women from the Czech Republic's Gypsy minority of about 250,000 people were sterilized against their will.
Under communism, which ended in the Czech Republic in 1989, sterilization was a semiofficial tool to limit the population of Gypsies, whose large families were seen as a burden on the state. The practice, however, ended only recently.
In other words, Gypsy women were still forced or or otherwise sterilized without their consent even into the time of EU membership of the Czech Republic. So, at least, it appears.
How, pray, was the Czech Republic, in the same way as other newer EU member states, ever allowed to join the EU with such appalling records on human rights, as far as one of the largest ethnic minorities on its territory?
Iveta Cervenakova, now 32, was illegally sterilized without her consent in 1997 after she gave birth to her second daughter by Caesarean section.
She filed a lawsuit in 2005. A lower court ruled two years later that the hospital in the northeastern city of Ostrava had to pay compensation and apologize for violating her rights.
Court spokesman Petr Angyalossy said the 500,000 Krona ($26,330) judgment was overturned because the award came after the 3-year statute of limitations in the case had expired. He said the hospital needs only apologize.
Neither an apology nor financial compensation, in all honesty, can compensate any Gypsy woman for the loss of being able to bear any (more) children. Nor can anyone ever compensate the woman nor the People as a whole for such crimes. Neither money nor apology will cut any ice. Not until such a time that the Romani People will be given the same respect and consideration as other minorities.
The Czech League for Human Rights sharply criticized the ruling and said it would appeal it to the Supreme Court. A lawyer of the League for Human Rights, who consulted with Cervenakova's attorney, said she will argue that there should be no statute of limitation applied in sterilization cases.
Several other Czech Gypsy women are also seeking damages from hospitals for illegal sterilizations. Not that they will get anywhere with this, I am sure, seeing the recent outcome. The European Union also is not in the least interested as to what happens to the Romani People, and this is blatantly obvious as to the happenings in Italy – that are all being but kept very quiet now.
Any Rom who still believes that the EU and/or the UN have the interests of the Romani People also at heart need to wake up, finally.
No one will every have our People's interests at heart if we, the Romani People, do not do it for ourselves. Ourselves Alone.
Ava Ame Shai! Yes, We Can!
© M Smith (Veshengro), November 2008
<>
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
