Czech lower house nominates Romani figures Čeněk Růžička, Elena Gorolová and Ida Kelarová for state honours

There are 141 names on the candidate list. The final decision is up to President Pavel, who is not obliged to honor everybody nominated.

The late Mr. Růžička has been nominated for the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in memoriam. He was proposed for the honor by the president of the lower house, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, and Cyril Koky, a Romani figure who has long served as the official in charge of the agenda of national minorities and foreign nationals for the Central Bohemian Region.

“Čeněk Růžička was quite a significant figure in the field of Romani activism in the Czech Republic during the last 30 years. I knew him since I was a child, when I used to visit my grandmother during vacations in Hořice. His family were indigenous Czech Roma who were tragically afflicted by racial persecution during the Second World War. He is responsible in large part for the removal of the industrial pig farm from the site of the former concentration camp at Lety u Písku and for the building of a dignified memorial there,” Koky told news server Romea.cz.

Mr. Růžička also dedicated his life to giving lectures and raising awareness about the Holocaust and its Romani victims in Bohemia. For his tireless efforts to achieve satisfaction for Holocaust victims of Romani origin he was awarded both the Artis Bohemiae Amicis award from the Czech Culture Minister and the Alice Garrigue Masaryk Human Rights Award from the US Embassy in 2017.

Human rights activist and field social worker Elena Gorolová has also been nominated for the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk by Czech MP Klára Kocmanová (Pirates). “I am very glad! The lifelong efforts of this strong woman in fighting for compensation for her fellow forcibly sterilized Romani women has been appreciated by my other colleagues, female and male, in the Chamber of Deputies and recommended for approval to the President of the Republic. Her story is all the stronger because she herself was subjected to an unjustified sterilization. It was an honor to nominate her for the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk,” Kocmanová said.

Gorolová works as a field social worker for the Life Together (Vzájemné soužití) nonprofit organization, which uses the community work method in its efforts to improve the living standards and social conditions of impoverished families in need. The BBC included her on its list of the world’s 100 most influential and inspiring women in 2018, where she was the only nominee from the Czech Republic; she also was given the Alice Garrigue Masaryk Award from the US Embassy for her advocacy for human rights in the Czech Republic.

Ida Kelarová is a Romani musician, music pedagogue and singer who was also nominated by Koky to receive the Medal of Merit from the Czech President. She established the International School for the Human Voice (Mezinárodní škola pro lidský hlas) and organizes workshops, multiethnic projects and a festival of Romani performance called “Gypsy Celebration Hartmanice”, in addition to founding musical ensembles with Romani songs in their repertoire.

In the year 1999, Kelarová established the group Romano Rat (Romani Blood) with Desider Dužda, with which she has performed in concert worldwide. In 2001 she was nominated for a Czech Lion for her music for the film “The Pilgrimage of Students Petr and Jakub” (Zpráva o putování studentů Petra a Jakuba).

Kelarová proudly espouses her Romani roots and has long dedicated her life to educating and guiding Romani children as well as to opening the way for non-Romani people to experience the culture of the Roma. “I am very glad the Chamber of Deputies has supported my suggestions. Čeněk Růžička and Ida Kelarová are eminent Romani figures. This honor would be an appreciation for and a high point of the many years of work they have performed,” Koky told Romea.cz.

Chamber of Deputies nominates just some members of the Mašín group, rejects Constitutional Court Justice Rychetský and humanitarian Šimon Pánek

The Chamber of Deputies has also nominated Josef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, who orchestrated the assassination of Acting Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942, as well as the communist-era dissident and democratic politician Petr Pithart. They rejected 10 names from the list of nominees, including the outgoing Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Pavel Rychetský, and the director of the People in Need (Člověk v tísni) organization, Šimon Pánek.

The in memoriam nominees include the late Holocaust survivor Jiří Brady, who was meant to have been given state honors seven years ago but was not given them during the presidency of Miloš Zeman. Other such nominees are the first Czechoslovak Prime Minister, Karel Kramář, and the first Czechoslovak Finance Minister, Alois Rašín.

Last year the lower house unsuccessfully proposed all six members of the Mašín Brothers anti-communist armed resistance group for honors to then-President Zeman, but this year it approved the nomination for state honors just for Zbyněk Janata and Ctibor Novák. The lower house did not agree with the nomination of members Josef and Ctirad Mašín, Milan Paumer, or Václav Švéda.

The lower house did nominate the mother of the Mašín Brothers, Zdena Mašínová, and their sister, also named Zdena Mašínová. It rejected the nomination of European Court for Human Rights judge Kateřina Šimáčková, YouTuber Karel Kovář aka Kovy, the recently-deceased politician from the Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement Věslav Michalik, and documentary director Olga Sommerová.

Other candidates on the lower house list include, for example, the astrophysicist Jiří Grygar, communist-era dissident and democratic politician Milan Uhde, football player and trainer František Cipro, musicians Vladimír Mišík, Michal Prokop and Jiří Pavlica, the author Jaroslav Rudiš, economist Jan Švejnar, and former Constitutional Court Justice Eliška Wagnerová. Two MPs announced they have a personal conflict of interest when voting on the nominees.

The first legislator to do so was Marek Benda (Civic Democratic Party – ODS) when deciding on the nomination of his mother, Kamila Bendová, and the second legislator to do so was Drahoslav Ryba (Association of Dissatisfied Citizens – ANO) when the lower house voted to nominate him. Ryba previously served as the Director-General of the Firefighter Service.

The lower house supported the nominations of Bendová and Ryba. At the suggestion of Benda, MPs voted on each individual nominee separately.

The submitter of the motion for the vote, Jan Bartošek (Christian Democrats – KDU-ČSL), originally wanted individual votes to be cast just for figures whose nominations were controversial and then for a vote to be cast on the preliminary list as a whole. It took lawmakers more than an hour to vote on each nominee.

Last year the Chamber of Deputies nominated 34 people for state honors. Then-President Zeman approved 20 of the nominees.