Category Archives: Czech Republic

Death of Romany man knelt on by Czech police compared to that of George Floyd

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Video footage challenges official claims that the cause of death was unrelated to man’s arrest

Video footage of a police officer kneeling on the neck of a Romany man who later died in an ambulance is being shared among Czechs on social media, leading many to compare his treatment to that of George Floyd.

The video, shot on 19 June, shows three police officers in Teplice, a town in the north of the Czech Republic, detaining a Romany man on the floor. As one officer holds the man’s feet, another appears to kneel on his neck, and a third tries to handcuff him. Voices of several Roma bystanders are heard in the video.

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Euro 2020: Uefa blocks rainbow light display at Germany v Hungary – live!

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“It was like a winter bath for the people’s souls.” Marcus Christensen looks at the Danish media reaction to last night’s excitement in Copenhagen.

Related: ’Now we take Wales’ – Danish media celebrates ‘magical’ night against Russia

If you’re struggling with live football cold-turkey this afternoon, I feel compelled to inform you that some intense, high-quality, low-scoring cricket is taking place in Southampton, where India are fighting back against New Zealand. And you can follow it here.

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‘None of the evidence was enough’: Czech women fight to criminalise all non-consensual sex

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In the Czech Republic, the legal definition of rape requires the threat of violence. Campaigners say it is failing victims

“I felt so lost when I heard the court verdict; as if the fact that he raped me was somehow not enough,” said Jana Novak.

Novak, from Prague, pressed charges against her attacker in 2019 and endured an 18-month-long court case. “I had all the evidence, the creepy messages, the medical notes,” said Novak, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “But none of it was enough.” While the court found that there had been non-consensual sex, the defendant was acquitted on the basis that there was insufficient evidence it constituted rape.

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Russia officially dubs US and Czech Republic ‘unfriendly’ states

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Government says US missions can no longer hire local staff following law Putin signed last month

The Russian government has officially deemed the United States and the Czech Republic “unfriendly” states, and announced that US diplomatic missions could no longer employ local staff while Czech missions could employ a maximum of 19.

Moscow first announced the ban on the US hiring local staff last month as part of its retaliation for a slew of new US sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2020 US presidential election and for involvement in the SolarWind hack of US federal agencies.

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Russia expels 20 Czech diplomats in tit-for-tat response

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Czechs expelled 18 Russians over Skripal suspects’ alleged role in deadly warehouse blast in 2014

Moscow has expelled 20 Czech diplomats in a tit-for-tat response after Prague accused Russian military intelligence of setting off a deadly blast at an ammunition warehouse in 2014.

Video from Moscow showed the Czech ambassador being summoned to the foreign affairs ministry where he was informed that four-fifths of his diplomatic envoys would be given 24 hours to depart the country.

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Dominic Raab: UK fully supports Czech hunt for Skripal suspects

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Foreign secretary hints he believes same Russian cell behind Salisbury poisoning and Czech explosion

The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the UK stood in “full support” of the Czech Republic after the country’s police announced they were hunting two Russians, suspected of carrying out the Salisbury poisonings, in relation to an explosion at an arms depot.

The Czech authorities said on Saturday they were seeking Alexander Petrov, 41, and Ruslan Boshirov, 43, in connection with a previously unexplained 2014 explosion at a munitions dump in Vrbětice, which left two dead.

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Czech police hunt two men with names matching Skripal suspects

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News follows announcement of expulsion of 18 Russia diplomats identified as spies linked to 2014 blast that killed two people

Czech police have said they are seeking two Russian men in connection with a 2014 blast that killed two people. The men, they said, hold passports used by the suspects in the attempted poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

The names match those used by the two men accused of poisoning Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the Soviet-era nerve agent novichok in the English city of Salisbury in 2018. Russia denied involvement in the poisoning, but about 300 diplomats were sent home in subsequent tit-for-tat expulsions.

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Czech Republic’s richest man dies in Alaska helicopter crash

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Billionaire Petr Kellner among five killed including guests, pilot and guides, with one survivor

Petr Kellner, the Czech Republic’s richest man, was one of five people killed when their helicopter crashed on a skiing trip in Alaska.

The 56-year-old was among the passengers and pilot killed on Saturday in the crash near Knik glacier north-east of Anchorage, Alaska state troopers said. One survivor was taken to hospital, they said, adding the group had been on a heliski tour.

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Stalin statue site reveals chilling remains of Prague labour camp

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Archaeologists have discovered foundations of the previously unknown structure in the city’s Letná park

The colossal monument to Joseph Stalin that towered over Prague at the height of the cold war stood as a frightening reminder of the Soviet dictator’s tyranny and communism’s seemingly unshakeable grip on the former Czechoslovakia.

Nearly 60 years after its demolition, the brooding 15.5-metre (51ft) shrine retains a hold on the popular imagination, with locals referring to the now popular meeting point where it once stood as “Stalin’s”.

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ChimpanZoom? Primates at Czech zoo go wild for video calls

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To make up for lack of interaction under Covid-19 restrictions, apes at zoos 150km apart can now watch each others’ daily lives on big screens

Humans might be tiring of video calls, Zoom birthdays and streamed performances, but the chimps at two Czech zoos are just starting to enjoy their new live online link-up.

To make up for the lack of interaction with visitors since the attractions closed in December under Covid-19 restrictions, the chimpanzees at Safari Park Dvur Kralove and the troop at a zoo 150km away in in Brno, can now watch one another’s daily lives on giant screens.

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‘I always wanted a girl’: scandal of Czech Roma forcibly sterilised

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Czech MPs to debate compensation bill for women as state refuses to acknowledge ‘attempted genocide’

Elena Gorolová was 21 when she gave birth to her second son. “The doctor told me I would need to deliver via a C-section otherwise I would be risking the health of me and the baby.”

In the delivery room, a nurse gave her papers to sign. “I was in so much pain … I was in no state to think about what I was signing,” says the social workerfrom the Czech Republic. She had unknowingly signed an agreement to be sterilised.

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Leaders at a loss as coronavirus catches up with central Europe

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Politicians struggle to explain why a region so much less affected in spring is so badly hit now

In the countries of central Europe, which during spring seemed to provide a best-practice model for keeping coronavirus at bay, case numbers have risen sharply, and governments in the region fear that their health systems are close to capacity and may struggle to cope. Central Europe is now just as badly hit as countries further west, and by some parameters is doing worse.

The Visegrad Four group of nations – Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – were all notable for their success in keeping case numbers low earlier in the year, even as gruesome statistics of deaths and hospitalisations came out of western Europe on a daily basis.

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Eight international peacekeepers killed in Sinai helicopter crash

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Six Americans, one Czech and one French citizen killed and only survivor in critical state

A helicopter carrying members of a multinational peacekeeping force has crashed near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, killing six Americans, a Czech and a French citizen.

The US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) said in a statement that all but one of the nine people onboard were killed when the aircraft went down “during a routine operation”.

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Global report: new Covid lockdown in Hungary as Belgium passes second peak

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Portugal imposes state of emergency; global cases pass 50m; infections in Germany ‘levelling off’

Hungary and Portugal have become the latest countries in Europe to impose tough new restrictions to stem the second wave of the coronavirus, as the first signs of light at the end of the tunnel emerged in France, Germany and Belgium.

As the US pharmaceuticals company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, said their experimental Covid-19 vaccine appeared safe and more than 90% effective, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, announced a partial lockdown.

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Global coronavirus report: Italian police use tear gas to disperse lockdown protests

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WHO tells countries ‘not to give up’ as virus fatigue sets in; street clashes in Barcelona; US daily deaths rise 10% in two weeks

Police in Italy have fired tear gas to disperse angry crowds in the northern cities of Turin and Milan after protests against the latest round of anti-coronavirus restrictions flared into violence.

As the head of the World Health Organization urged countries “not to give up” in their fight to contain the virus, luxury goods shops, including a Gucci fashion shop, were ransacked in the centre of Turin as crowds of youths took to the streets after nightfall, letting off firecrackers and lighting coloured flares.

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Who in Europe is getting it right on Covid?

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Different approaches are having notably different outcomes

A second coronavirus wave is sweeping continental Europe, with new infection records broken daily in many countries. There are wide variations, but almost no country has been left untouched – even those that fared well in the first wave.

Across the 31 countries from which the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control collects national data, the average 14-day case incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants has multiplied from just 13 in mid-July to almost 250 last week.

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Czech health minister set to lose job after breaching his own Covid rules

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Roman Prymula photographed leaving Prague restaurant that appeared to be illicitly open

The Czech Republic’s health minister is set to lose his job after visiting a Prague restaurant in what appeared to be a breach of emergency coronavirus regulations he had put forward in an effort to win the country’s increasingly desperate battle against coronavirus.

Roman Prymula, an epidemiologist and the main architect of the Czech regulations, was photographed on Wednesday night by the tabloid Blesk leaving the establishment, which appeared to be illicitly open to high-profile guests, hours after a fresh lockdown was imposed to combat the country’s soaring caseload.

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Covid in Europe: protests in Czech Republic, Ireland to toughen rules

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Switzerland makes masks mandatory as continent struggles to contain infections

Police fought anti-mask protesters in the Czech Republic, Ireland prepared to announce tough new restrictions and Switzerland made masks mandatory indoors as European governments struggled to contain continuing record Covid case numbers.

As Italy on Sunday reported 11,705 new infections over the past 24 hours, its largest ever figure, and France on Saturday set a new high of 32,427 cases, police in Prague’s historic tourist district fired teargas and water cannon after demonstrations against strict anti-coronavirus restrictions turned violent.

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‘On the brink of disaster’: Europe’s Covid fight takes a turn for the worse

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As France imposes curfews, even countries that previously managed well are struggling badly

“It’s not a word I’ve heard in a long, long time,” an elderly Paris resident said, leaving her apartment in mask and gloves for an early expedition to the shops. “A curfew. That’s for wartime, isn’t it? But in a way I suppose that’s what this is.”

Europe’s second coronavirus wave took a dramatic turn for the worse this week, forcing governments across the continent to make tough choices as more than a dozen countries reported their highest ever number of new infections.

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