PHOTO GALLERY: Protesters create an "alley of shame" in front of Brno City Hall to protest city representatives' treatment of Romani refugees from Ukraine

21 June 2022

2 minute read

Ahead of a meeting of the local city assembly in Brno, Czech Republic this morning, a group of people gathered to protest the bad conditions for homeless Romani refugees from Ukraine in Brno, for whom the city has erected a tent near the main railway station, and the protest will continue at 16:00 with a demonstration on Dominikánské náměstí that will be broadcast live online by ROMEA TV. A Brno-based collective of feminists called SdruŽeny (Associated Women) and the Food Not Bombs initiative are the organizers of the protest.

Shortly after 7:00 this morning people began to gather on the square by the entrance into City Hall to protest Brno’s treatment of the Romani refugee women and their children. Roughly 10 demonstrators chanted the different slogans on their signs.

The messages included: “We’re all human beings, let’s treat each other humanely”, “Equal solidarity”, “Women and children sleep on the ground while their husbands fight for their country” and “Stop selective solidarity”. Organizer Anežka Michnová of SdruŽeny told the Czech News Agency that the protesters planned to greet local assembly members with the “alley of shame” as they accessed the building.

The protesters, who included the musician and Romani community member Gejza Horváth, said the Czech Government is bragging of its exemplary approach toward other refugees from Ukraine even as Romani refugees are not being welcomed in the country. The Romani women and their children who fled Russia’s war on Ukraine were relocated by the Brno City Hall from the main railway station where they have been living for weeks into a small park between Benešova and Koliště Streets.

They are living there in catastrophic conditions that independent initiatives and nonprofit organizations have long been criticizing. The city then fenced off the space near the main railway station where the Romani refugee families had originally been sleeping.