Forced Eviction Crisis in the Czech Republic

21 July 2005

On June 30, 2005, the ERRC, together with the Centre on Housing Rights (COHRE), European Roma Information Office (ERIO), Life Together (Vzajemne souziti) and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) sent a letter to Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, urging him to act to address an emerging crisis in the town of Bohumin, where a number of persons are threatened with forced eviction from their housing. The persons under threat – the majority of whom are Romani – have been offered racially segregated alternate housing arrangements or have been provided with no alternate housing at all.

Although the Czech government has acknowledged concerns at racial discrimination and segregation in the field of housing, to date no action by the government has effectively countered these problems. Indeed, the Czech government has not yet managed even the rudimentary measure of adopting an anti-discrimination law in conformity with European Union requirements. The letter sent today notes the broad failure by the Czech government to adopt law and policy measures addressing a number of very serious matters related to Roma in the field of housing, problems that the government itself has identified. The full text of the letter is available at: http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2274.

(ERRC)