Czech Roma: In Search of Asylum

Czech Roma: In Search of Asylum

Roma from the Czech Republic continue to
seek–and find–refuge in Western Europe, even as their home
country gets closer to EU membership.

By most accounts, the Czech Republic should be a
member of the European Union within the next two years. But even as
the country gets closer to joining this club of Western European
nations, some of its citizens are still seeking refuge in the
West.

Last year, a total of 42 Czech citizens were
granted asylum in various European countries. Out of the 10
post-communist candidate countries, only Romania produced more
successful asylum applicants in the West.

While the number of Czechs accepted as
asylum-seekers in Western Europe seems high considering the fact
that the country is a leading candidate for membership in the EU,
it was still only a small proportion of the total applicants from
the Czech Republic last year. According to a report issued by the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a total of 2,346 Czech
citizens applied for asylum in various EU countries as well as in
Norway and Switzerland.

Nevertheless, some observers in the EU consider
the number of asylum-seekers from the Czech Republic to be too high
for a country that is slated to be accepted as a member of the
union by 2004. The UNHCR report states that of the 42 successful
asylum-seekers from the Czech Republic last year, the vast majority
were Czech citizens of Romani descent.

Some members of the European Parliament say the
fact that EU member countries even accept asylum applications from
citizens of candidate countries indicates that those countries do
not fulfill all the requirements for EU membership.

Lousewies van der Laan, the deputy chair of the
European Parliament’s committee for human rights and freedoms, said
that under such conditions, the claim that that the candidate
countries are fulfilling the political criteria for membership is
tantamount to “burying one’s head in the sand.” She was quoted as
saying in the Czech daily Lidove noviny on 21 June that the fact
that independent courts in EU member states are granting asylum to
people from the candidate countries is proof of the existence of
discrimination and persecution in those countries.

WHY SO MANY?

“The main reasons for the emigration [of Roma]
are the manifestations of racism and xenophobia in Czech society,”
Ondrej Gina of the Association of Romani Regional Representatives
told TOL. Gina, who monitors the situation in the Rokycany region,
about 150 kilometers southwest of Prague, said that of the
800-strong Romani community that lived there in the mid-1990s, some
350 Roma have left his region.

Last year in the Czech Republic, a total of 343
racism-related crimes were reported. In the first half of this
year, the Czech Interior Ministry has registered 192 reported
crimes related to racism.

“The institutionalized violence of racism is,
however, much worse than the acts of individuals,” Gina said. He
said Czech Romani communities suffer from high unemployment,
efforts to force them to the outskirts of cities and towns, and
very limited access to higher education.

There have been large outflows of Roma from the
Czech Republic since the second half of the 1990s, when many
asylum-seekers were heading to Britain and Canada. The flow of
emigrants increased sharply in August 1997, when the Czech
commercial television station TV Nova ran a short documentary
called “Gypsies Go to Heaven” about Romani asylum-seekers in
Canada. After that, the number of asylum applicants skyrocketed,
and Canada responded by introducing visa restrictions for Czech
travelers in October of that year.

While Britain also threatened to impose visas on
Czechs, nothing happened until last summer. In the middle of July
2001, the Czech R epublic agreed to let Britain station immigration
officers at Prague’s Ruzyne Airport. This step was widely
criticized in the Czech media, and various politicians, including
Czech President Vaclav Havel, Senate chairman Petr Pithart, and
then-lower house speaker Vaclav Klaus, described it as
discriminatory. The British checks were eventually lifted, only to
be reinstated later. British officials have reinstated and lifted
the checks several times since.

In response to the British airport checks, the
human rights umbrella group Liberty filed a complaint with the
Royal Court of Justice in London last October. Liberty represents
the European Roma Rights Center and six Czech Roma who were barred
from boarding a plane to London last July after they did not pass
the British checks at the airport in Prague. The court proceedings,
which are being held behind closed doors, started on 22 July, and a
decision is expected within a couple of weeks.

MORE DEPARTURES

Recently, the Czech media reported a new wave of
Romani emigration, this time to Scandinavian countries. Ivan
Jancarek, the director of the European Union and Western European
department of the Czech Foreign Ministry, said increasing numbers
of Czech asylum applicants have been noted in recent months by EU
member states. But he added that the Czech Republic so far has no
indication that any country plans to introduce visa restrictions or
similar measures on Czech citizens.

“The British checks at Ruzyne Airport will, of
course, continue but there is no intention to make the controls
stricter or change them,” Jancarek said to TOL on 12 July. He also
waved off the rising asylum applicants in Scandinavia as seasonal.
“It is a cyclic period at the beginning of summer, but the number
for the whole year will be the same as in previous years,” Jancarek
said.

However, according to the Swedish Embassy in
Prague, a total of 135 Czech citizens have applied for asylum in
Sweden so far this year, compared with just 79 for the whole of
last year. Last year, 43 applicants were immediately denied asylum,
compared with 97 this year. Last year, Finland registered only 11
Czech applicants for asylum and rejected nine. The numbers for 2002
were not available for that country.

“I have information that some Roma are trying to
get asylum in Australia, New Zealand, or even in Japan,” said Gina.
“This shows that they are firmly confident that they have to
emigrate.” Gina rejects the arguments of those Czechs who say that
most of the Romani emigrants are simply economic refugees rather
than victims of persecution.

While he said he has heard that the Romani
emigrants are receiving advice on applying for asylum from a
specific group, he added that he has not been able to confirm that
information. Gina also challenges the perception often promoted in
the Czech media that the annual numbers of Romani emigrants
reflects the same group of people that simply tries to get into one
country after another each summer.

VANISHING YOUTH “I can see it here in
Rokycany–these people leave and never return,” Gina said. He added
that it is common for one member of a Romani family to try to gain
asylum in a Western country, to be followed by the rest of their
relatives soon afterward. The Czech Helsinki Committee estimates
that between 70,000 and 100,000 Roma have left the Czech Republic
in recent years. Gina said he considers those figures to be
realistic.

“It is especially the young and capable who are
leaving because they do not see a future for themselves here,” Gina
said, adding that the Czech Romani community has lost many of its
20- to 45-year-old members.

Meanwhile, those who have stayed continue to
struggle with the reality of Romani life in the Czech Republic.
“Out of fewer than 70 Romani children in Rokycany, 47 attend
special schools for problematic pupils and they have practically
zero opportunity to go to secondary school or university,” Gina
said.

Often, Romani children are forced by the
authorities to attend special schools for children with learning
difficulties simply because they have spoken Romani at home and
lack proficiency in the Czech language. Moreover, there has been
little will in the past to help Romani children overcome such
difficulties. But the situation is slowly changing. The Czech
government is setting up preparatory classes, where children can
get used to a regular school routine and improve their language
skills, in regions of the Czech Republic with large numbers of
Romani inhabitants. “The Czech government realizes how serious the
situation is,” says Gina.

Jancarek says such efforts indicate that the
continuing emigration of Roma from the Czech Republic is not likely
to endanger the country’s efforts to join the EU. “The government’s
initiatives are rated positively by EU countries and institutions
and never, during the [membership] talks, have our partners hinted
that it could represent an obstacle to our entry into the EU,”
Jancarek said. He added that the Czech government has cooperated
with Britain and Sweden on various programs aimed at integrating
the Romani population.

However, Gina argues that the government’s
programs have not been far-reaching or effective enough to minimize
the reasons that compel Czech Romani citizens to emigrate. “Quite
often the programs look very good on paper but in reality they do
not work very well,” Gina says. He blames a lack of avenues for
Romani groups to offer feedback to the government on its programs
and poor communication between Roma and government institutions for
the feeble results.

“It is necessary to discuss more, to provide
more space for Roma, and to offer them a greater degree of
participation in the decision-making process,” Gina said.

“There is still plenty to improve, but surely we
all agree that this question cannot be solved immediately. It takes
time,” said Jancarek.

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