Fifty Roma assemble in front of the Czech Labor and Social Affairs Ministry to call for an end to discrimination

ROMEA TV broadcast the event, organized by Jan Červeňák and Jan Zajac, live online. “We disagree with how the ministry has been treating us, with how it has been negotiating with us at various meetings, and we are mainly here because we are being discriminated against, primarily in employment, and enough is enough. If the minister and the ministry as a whole will not hear us, and ignore us, and don’t pay enough attention to us, then what should we do?” Červeňák asked at the opening of the event, and some in the crowd shouted back: “Demonstrate!”

“Exactly. Stop Discrimination! Stop Discrimination!” Červeňák chanted with the crowd.

The organizer then explained the low turnout by saying that Romani people from socially excluded localities would have liked to have attended but could not afford to do so. That claim was then reiterated by other speakers.

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“There has been enough silence, enough humiliation, enough insulting us just because our skin color is different,” Emil Zajac, co-chair of Roma Luma, opened his speech and went on to criticize discrimination against Roma in the areas of education and employment. “I would like to thank the policemen and policewomen who are protecting us here, we’re nothing but glad about that, but you know what, Mr. Police Officer? Mark my words: We would love to be in your ranks, standing among you as equals, but the opportunities for us, when it comes to education – discrimination there is enormous. The schools are segregated, and that is why we are fighting here. We are mainly concerned about our children, we want them to become doctors, we want them to become lawmakers, etc. You know what, though? First you have to stop discrimination, the Antidiscrimination Act here is not being upheld, because there is racism here,” Zajac thundered to the approximately 50 Romani people who blew the whistles they had brought with them, while one demonstrator banged on a drum.

Another speaker was a former co-chair of Roma Luma and the current chair of the ARSZ nonprofit organization, Marco Cavali, whose speech was about Romani firms winning commissions. “Currently things work in such a way that the conditions for awarding public tenders are set up so that Romani people in particular will not win,” Cavali alleged, adding that there is enormous discrimination in the Czech Republic.

“Of the state commissions which are distributed here on the order of billions and millions of crowns, just crumbs are left over for us, but we cannot feed our families from those crumbs,” Cavali said, who went on to criticize representatives of nonprofit organizations who, in his view, have no right to speak for Roma and should not have political influence. Those assembled responded by chanting: “Stop Nonprofits!”

Cavali then said: “Other people should be here for that, people at whom we could democratically point our fingers.” Červeňák then made another speech in which he critiqued the current system for addressing the integration of Roma.

“I won’t be integrating anymore, I don’t want to integrate. You integrate with us,” he said to the non-Romani citizens of the Czech Republic before also criticizing nonprofit organizations.

“The system that has been working since 1989 is not beneficial. On the contrary, the conditions for the life of the Romani nation keep deteriorating. You keep covering that up! There are subsidies allocated for our nation, enormous subsidies! Over the last 30 years we could have had many apartment units allocated to Roma, but they were not. The system that functions here together with the nonprofit sector is absolutely wrong,” Červeňák said.

“For that reason I’m speaking on behalf of all the Roma, all those who fight to survive every day, the poorest Roma, I’m clearly saying: Stop Nonprofits!” Červeňák shouted into the microphone and the demonstrators chanted “Stop Nonprofits!” once more. A speech was then made by Miroslav Tancoš, chair of the Roma Democratic Party, which the Government recently ordered dissolved because it has failed to submit annual reports.

“I don’t need social support, but jobs, and our firms need state commissions,” said Tancoš. Robert Čonka, who traveled to the demonstration from Germany, then gave a speech describing his experiences abroad.

Čonka said he lived first in Great Britain and then in Germany and that in neither of those countries is there the kind of discrimination and racism that there is in the Czech Republic. Organizers then invited Robert Vašíček, a former member of “Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy” party, who used to work at the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry under former Minister Škromach, to speak.

“In 2005 we drafted changes to the Labor Code called ‘It Pays to Work’. I have the feeling that Minister Jurečka, especially when it comes to groups like the Roma, is rather doing his best to make sure it does not pay to work,” Vašíček said, adding that Romani unemployment was artificially created after 1989 because before then [during communism] Romani people did work.

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“Romani people are not to blame for the fact that they have no jobs today. It’s the system, and I believe racism after 1989 was allowed here with the tacit consent of the regime so the finger could be pointed at somebody as the class enemy,” said Vašíček, calling on Labor and Social Affairs Minister Marian Jurečka to create jobs for Roma.

“Keep your support and your welfare, give people jobs which will pay enough, jobs that are honored and guaranteed by the state,” Vašíček closed his speech. Emil Zajac, the co-chair of Roma Luma, then made a second speech.

“Something is wrong here. It’s gone around in circles for 33 years and we want it to change, for the system to be absolutely different, because what you’ve been doing for the last 33 years isn’t working,” Emil Zajac said.

Ferdinand Baník addressed the demonstration next, announcing that more such demonstrations will be held in the future and are being planned to happen simultaneously at the same time in different cities so the Roma who cannot afford to travel don’t have to. “These demonstrations will continue. We won’t stop, we are fighting for our children,” Červeňák chimed in.

The organizers then played a recording of another co-chair of Roma Luma, Roman Samko, who could be heard alleging that a woman representing a janitorial firm had refused to hire a Romani woman because the health care facility where the firm provided their services allegedly didn’t want Romani women. Shortly before 15:30 the demonstration ended and the approximately 50 participants started peacefully dispersing under the supervision of several police officers.