Czech Update

Amnesty finds little improvement in Roma discrimination

Dominik Lukeš — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:43:13 +0100

Unfortunately, a new report from Amnesty International found the situation of the Roma minority as dire as in the past from unequal treatment by the police, through limited access to social services, to negative attitudes by non-Roma Czechs. read more »

How have Czech values changed?

Dominik Lukeš — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:55:17 +0100

If you're wondering about what Czech views on this or that are, you could do worse than going to the excellent World Values Survey and use their read more »

Czech population highest in 10 years, foreigners help

Dominik Lukeš — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 12:43:50 +0100

Čechů je nejvíce za posledních deset let - www.lidovky.cz
Česko mělo na konci letošního prvního čtvrtletí nejvíc obyvatel za posledních deset let. V zemi žilo 10,306.700 lidí. Za první čtvrtletí se jejich počet zvedl o 19.500, a to hlavně díky příchodu cizinců.

The commonly bemoaned decrease in population growth has been, at least termporarily, halted. There seem to more newly-borns than the sadly-departed and the minor influx of foreigners is also a positive factor. read more »

Unfortunate end to recruitment of the Roma to Czech police force

Dominik Lukeš — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:10:26 +0000

Romano Vodi - Romany applicants fail to meet Czech police criteria-press - News None of 7 Romanies who applied for jobs in the municipal police of the town of Most has met the required criteria and the police will therefore not have any Romanies in its ranks, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes writes in its north Bohemian edition today. The Romany candidates who would have been sent for a six-month re-qualification course funded from European Union funds if admitted, did not even pass through the initial introductory interview, the paper says. read more »

Still debating Romany holocaust

Dominik Lukeš — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 09:44:47 +0000

Committee wants Czech govt to work for Lety pig farm's removal Prague- The Czech committee for compensation of the Romany Holocaust victims today gave CTK a copy of an open letter it has sent to the government asking it to take steps to remove the pig farm in Lety, south Bohemia, that stands on the site of a World War Two camp in which Romanies were gathered.

The extermination attempts of the Roma in the Czech protectorate by the Nazis is one of the underreported features of WWII. One of the reasons given for that is that the Roma concentration camp near Pilsen was mostly staffed by Czechs. read more »

European Jews satisfied with situation of Czech Jewish community

Dominik Lukeš — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 15:29:28 +0000

European Jews satisfied with situation of Czech Jewish community - Prague Daily Monitor Prague, Jan 10 (CTK) - The president of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) Pierre Besnainou is satisfied with the situation of the local Jewish community and attitudes of other citizens, especially politicians, towards it, he said during a meeting with Czech President Vaclav Klaus today, Tomas Kraus told CTK.

After mostly negative stories o read more »

Czechs most like Slovaks, least Romanies

Dominik Lukeš — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:02:31 +0000

Czechs most like Slovaks, least Romanies-poll - Prague Daily Monitor Prague, Jan 8 (CTK) - Czechs consider themselves the most likeable of all ethnic groups living in the Czech Republic, according to a poll by the CVVM centre carried out last December and released today. Out of foreigners, Czech most like Slovaks and they also like Poles and Germans very much, while they harbour the least sympathy to Romanies and people from the Balkan countries are not very popular among Czechs, according to the poll. read more »

Czech nationalism and the president

Dominik Lukeš — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 02:24:43 +0000

Klaus fears Schwarzenberg would not defend Czech interests -press The foreign minister must "defend the interests of the Czech Republic clearly, sharply and out of his own conviction," Klaus writes. He says that Schwarzenberg is linked with the Czech Republic only by a smaller part of his life and property, and that he has come in contact with the normal life of Czech people only marginally.

This is a good example of some of the national prejudices that the president is exploiting here (no different, though, from the recent concerns in the US about Senators swearing on the Quoran). read more »

Czech Romanies face discrimination at work, school

Dominik Lukeš — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 11:17:12 +0000

Czech Romanies face discrimination at work, school -- report According to the report by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), there is both latent and open discrimination in the Czech Republic and it is most often Romanies who are its victims. But the report says that racism is not dramatic in the country. ... The Raxen report states that Romanies are discriminated against on the labour market mainly not because of their ethnicity, but because employers in general believe that they do not work well and do not attend work regularly. read more »

Czech racist joke at election rally

Dominik Lukeš — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 15:58:53 +0000

United Press International - NewsTrack - Czech racist joke at election rally PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek is trying to downplay a racist joke made by a comedian at a campaign stop ahead of June elections. The joke targeted the country's minority Gypsy population, whom polls show are commonly stereotyped by Czechs. The BBC reports television comedian Jiří Krampol has been touring with Paroubek and called Gypsies thieves. Paroubek allegedly smiled at the jokes. read more »

Czech Jewish community experiences rebirth after fall of communism

Dominik Lukeš — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 21:51:17 +0000

Czech Jewish community experiences rebirth after fall of communism - 27-01-2006 - Radio Prague The Czech Republic marks Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945. Some 80,000 Bohemian and Moravian Jews perished in the Holocaust, and before the community could even start recovering from the war, the communist regime practically froze its activities. It was not until the fall of communism in 1989 that the Czech Jewish community could start to rebuild.

Czech traditions and German influence

Dominik Lukeš — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 13:23:47 +0000

The Prague Post Online Experts agree that proper Olomouc cheese, or Olomoucké tvarůžky, should be moist and slightly sticky, with a lustrous, translucent layer on the outside. The inside, by contrast, should be firm but not tough, its color somewhere between light beige and creamy white. And then there is the characteristic smell. ... But is it authentically Czech? On that point hangs a debate stirring up the EP [European Parliament]. Tvarůžky and another of the country's favorite products — thin, sweet wafers from Karlovy Vary known as oplatky — are at the center of an argument between Czech, German and Austrian members of the EP. read more »