Prague - The Canadian government is likely to reintroduce visa requirements for Czech citizens to deal with the recent flood of refugee claimants from the Czech Republic.
"Yes, I can confirm that Canada has informed us about the considered measures in response to the rising number of Czech refugee applicants," caretaker Foreign Minister Jan Kohout told journalists on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Kohout and Interior Minister Martin Pecina held negotiations with Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney on Monday, as reported by daily Lidové noviny on Tuesday.
Lidové noviny said Canada would reimpose visa requirements as early as July 7. However, Jan Kohout said that he has not received any official announcement yet.
Kohout also warned visa requirements would harm Canada's relations with the European Union a the Czech Republic. He also pointed out that the country would consider reimposing visa restrictions for Canadian diplomats. Because of EU norms, Prague cannot reintroduce visa requirements to common Canadian citizens but can do so for diplomats.
"There is something not good going on," Czech Minister for European Affairs Štefan Füle commented on the situation.
Canada granted asylum status to 34 Czechs in the first quarter of 2009. From January to April more than one thousand Czech asylum seekers landed in Canada and south Ontario's immigration shelters are packed at the moment.
Czech Roma minority represents a major source of refugee applicants in Canada ahead of conflict-prone countries such as Afghanistan and Somalia. Among the latest asylum seekers is now former brodcaster Anna Poláková who decided to leave the country due to the increased number of attacks on her family.
"Even the police were not willing to help us when we needed it," Poláková told Aktuálně.cz in April.
Canadian fact-finders in action
A fact finding mission involving members of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) visited the Czech Republic in March to draft a report on the status of discrimination of Czech Roma.
The IRB report found numerous instances of government and state agencies, including the police, making efforts to integrate members of that community, who were once known as Gypsies, reports Canwest News Service.
The report also interviewed a number of academics and non-governmental organization representatives who alleged police have "discriminatory" or "disrespectful" attitudes and don't take their complaints seriously.
The report also found that in a country of 10.2 million about 80,000 of the 200,000-250,000 Roma live in "socially excluded communities" with limited access to education, jobs and adequate housing.
The IRB researchers were told that the ghetto dwellers face social ills such as prostitution, loansharking, and human and drug trafficking, and often find themselves "forgotten" by police and other authorities.
Canada has raised the possibility of reintroducing the visa restrictions in April, calling on the Czech government to "crack down on unscrupulous operators believed to be behind a massive surge" in the number of Roma refugee claimants.
