No help to be provided to evicted Czech Romanies-press

The authorities of the north Moravian town of Vsetin who evicted local Romanies from a dilapidated house last autumn and moved them to the Jesenik area will not help the Romanies to solve their difficult situation, the daily Sumpersky a jesenicky denik writes today.

The Vsetin authorities have rejected Czech Ombudsman Otakar Motejl’s report in which he said that the town hall made a mistake when it moved out Romany rent-defaulters from the town’s centre and that the Romanies are entitled to receiving flats and returning to their native town, the paper says.

The town hall was then headed by Jiri Cunek, now Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) leader, Deputy Prime Minister and Local Development Minister in the government of Mirek Topolanek (Civic Democrats).

The authorities explained their decision to evict the Romany families that did not pay rent by the fact that they had to leave the house due to unhealthy living conditions.

However, Motejl says in his report that the state of the houses to which the Romanies were moved is no better than that of their original home.

Some of the Romany families were moved to container flats on Vsetin outskirts, while others were sent away from Vsetin and resettled elsewhere in Moravia.

"It is a shock. They did not accept any of the recommendations from the report. All the statements made by the Vsetin town hall that they will come to help the Romanies was a mere good theatre performance. They have left the families to their own devices," Vaclav Zastera from the Roma Vidnava group said after he met representatives of the Vsetin town hall on Monday.

"This is awful. They forced us to change our permanent residence. They threatened that they would suspend the payment of welfare benefits to us," the paper quotes Karol Kandrac whose family was moved out to Vidnava as saying.

The Vsetin town hall evicted the Romany families from their flats on October 13, 2006, in a way that Motejl called deportation. The men were moved first, while the women and children were brought to the new places of their residence by bus late at night.
The Romanies did not know where they were driven and they only saw their new home when they were brought there.