CZECH TELEGRAPH

Another Romany/Gypsy Attacked

16. 3. 2010 / Fabiano Golgo

A new attack against a Romany family's home was reported Monday by the Czech public television news. A Molotov cocktail was thrown inside the house of a Gypsy family in Ostrava, almost victimizing the family's 14 year old daughter. She managed to water down the bottle and nobody was hurt. In 2009 a 2 year old Romany girl was severely burned in almost all her body after a similar racially motivated attack. She spent 7 months interned in a hospital, going through dozens of operations and constant pain. There has been a renewed anti-Gypsy wave in the Czech Republic, propelled by economic frustrations (Romany families are accused by haters of milking the State for social benefits and of being chronicle pet criminals).

Worker's Party Appeals Against Dissolution

The Czech racist and extreme nationalist Worker's Party (Dělnická strana - DS) filed a complaint against its recent dissolution by a higher court of Law in Brno. The party's leader, Tomáš Vandas, wants the Constitutional Court to decide whether to forbid and cancel a whole party is legally sound. The party has been made illegal because it threats democratic processes and defends the change of power by forceful means, besides spreading ethnic hatred.

Worker's Party Meeting Stopped by City Officials

The City Council of Tábor banned a pre-election meeting of the renamed (after being banned by court) Worker's Party, which currently goes by with an added "of Social Justice" (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti - DSSS). They decided that a simple change of official name cannot be taken as if it was a different political association. It is a breakthrough decision, considering a long Hapsburg influence and a later Soviet insistence on bureaucratic reading of the Law (its letter, not its spirit), which often leads to kafkian situations, where something is reasonable or obvious, but what is taken into account is only what is official, on paper.

Czech Schools Aiming More Integration with Disabled and Minorities

The Czech government wants to start building schools specialized in the integration of minority and disabled children. Czech schools are seldom multicultural, because of a long socially accepted tradition of sending the physically or mentally disabled (a category most Gypsy children fell into, after being judged by school-entrance tests that reflect white Czechs cultural traits) to separate educational facilities. That has caused a huge deficit in Romany educational levels, perpetuating their low social standing. It was also proposed the introduction of a mandatory pre-school year, so that less advantaged pupils can be prepared for the entering the first school year. Funds will be allocated also to the training of teachers and other professionals to deal with the needs of the physically disabled and the mentally challenged.

Prague Restaurants Plan a Smoking Ban

Over half of Prague's beer pubs and almost all upscale restaurants decided to change into non-smoking establishments starting this July. Czech Republic has the most liberal smoking laws in Europe and its population is among the top consumers of tobacco in the union.

Immigration Down in 2009

Czech Republic's population increased by about 40 thousand new inhabitants, according to the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ). It went down in comparison with 2008, when 70 thousand immigrants moved to Czech Republic.

End of Czech Baby Boom

According to newly released data by the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ) the number of births in 2009 still outweighed the number of deaths in the country by about 11 thousand people. But the ten year baby boom that started in 1999 seems to have come to an end. The average age at which Czech women are becoming mothers is following a trend towards later ages, being 27 in 2008, now having reached 29. The official population of the Czech Republic in 2009 was 10,506,813.

Fatherless Czech Babies on the Increase

The Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ) also found out that almost 40% of babies are born out of wedlock. Of 118,3 thousand kids that where born in 2009, about 46 thousand, or 38,8%, were from single mothers. From 118 300 children born in the Czech Republic in 2009, 3100 were from parents not of Czech origin.

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Obsah vydání | Úterý 16.3. 2010