Amnesty International on the Czech Republic: SPD party spreads racism, Romani women still waiting to be compensated for their forced sterilizations, arms exports to human rights violators continue

The organization also mentions that the recent election campaign by the “Freedom and Direct Democracy” (SPD) movement featured “racist and xenophobic rhetoric”. However, the report also notes positive steps, such as the adoption of a better definition of the crime of rape; progress on equalizing some (but not all) of the rights currently held by same-sex couples with those held by heterosexual married couples; a Constitutional Court decision that has abolished the condition of sterilization prior to requesting legal gender recognition; and the opening of the new Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia.

According to the report, the Health Ministry had compensated 720 women, most of them Romani, by the end of 2024 for their forced sterilizations between 1966 and 2012. “Hundreds of women are still waiting for the CZK 300,000 [EUR 12,000] promised,” the organization wrote.

AI noted that the ombudsman has also criticized the management of the compensation process and its protracted nature. The Chamber of Deputies has already adopted a bill to extend the process to the end of 2026 that will be reviewed by the Senate and, if adopted there, will be signed into law by the Czech President.

The organization also reported Czech law on abortion is outdated and many health care facilities refuse the procedure to women from other EU countries “due to erroneous claims” by the medical association, despite the Health Ministry and ombudsman confirming that such procedures can lawfully be offered to such patients. The report also notes the Senate’s rejection of the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence.

AI also notes that a man convicted of repeatedly raping his stepdaughter for more than two years was given just a suspended sentence by an appellate court. In that context, the authors also recall the adoption of a new definition of the crime of rape as sex without consent and a bill for the compulsory continuing education of judges.

The organization also reported on the adoption of a law according to which same-sex partners have similar rights to heterosexual married couples, but “without full parental rights”. AI also notes the Constitutional Court decision abolishing the condition that persons requesting legal gender recognition first be sterilized.

Legislation on gender recognition should now be amended to align with that decision. The report also notes that the Czech Republic has received about 370,000 refugees from Ukraine.

However, most of the employed refugees from Ukraine are working at jobs for which they are overqualified. The authors of the report also mention the recent “anti-immigration [election] campaign” that was waged by the SPD movement with “racist and xenophobic rhetoric”, which police are now investigating.

The document also mentions the opening of the Lety u Písku Memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia, the issue of establishing a Children’s Ombudsman, and the bill to ban corporal punishment of children. According to the authors, the Government “failed to adopt” a binding climate law last year with aims and measures to combat the climate crisis.

The report says the Czech Republic is continuing to export weapons to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates despite concerns that they could be used by those countries for the purpose of violating humanitarian law and human rights. The authors also note the Czech Republic has “some of the laxest” gun laws in Europe.

Those laws are mentioned in relation to the December 2023 mass shooting at Charles University’s Faculty of Arts in Prague. The report notes a working group was said to be meeting on tightening that legislation.