Prague/Brussels - The number of right-wing extremists is growing and as a result Czech Roma seek asylum in Canada. That is the message of the latest report on the status of Roma communities in 2008, drafted by the Cabinet.
The analysis highlights meager living conditions of the Roma, lack of job opportunities and overall discrimination. Poverty often leads to poor quality housing. Roma end up living in the outskirts in dilapidated buildings with no social facilities.
The report comes less than a week after Canada imposed visa restrictions on Czechs.
Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb said the municipalities and towns are also to be blamed for failing to support the Roma. If they were here to give them a hand when facing difficult situations, they would not have had to look for help outside of the country.
Populist approach wins support
Experts agree that racism of the 1990s is back. The first post-Velvet-Revolution decade was characterized by frequent attacks on Roma, death of a 17-year old boy Tibor Danihel and a wall in Matiční Street in the town of Ústí nad Labem, which separates the local Roma from the non-Roma.
Kocáb alleged that populist approach of some of the Czech politicians leads to more marginalization of the Roma community.
"Czech politicians act in a populist way in order to be perceived by the public as guardians of "us, decent people" versus "them, the others" to win the voters' credit," said Kocáb.
"Surprisingly, it is also politicians of major parties, not of far-right formations. And the sad thing is that the big parties' leaders reward them by fielding them in ballots," Kocáb added.
Paradoxically, the far-right would-be politicians, for example from the Workers' Party (Dělnická strana), look up to these populist lawmakers, trying to adopt their behavior, according to Jan Černý of the People in Need foundation .
"That is one of the reasons why the Workers' Party has stopped talking about nationalism and focused more on the Roma issue," Černý told Aktuálně.cz. "They have become more diplomatic and say things Řápková [mayor of Chomutov], Čunek [former mayor of Vsetín] and the likes dare say with impunity."
