News

Three people were seriously injured when a coach they were travelling in overturned on a road near Lubenec, west Bohemia on Monday. The accident occurred when the bus, which was carrying 41 passengers, skidded at a sharp turn, left the motorway and turned over. Thirty of those on board sustained minor injuries, a spokesperson for the local fire service said.

Police in Prague have summonsed the heavy metal singer Aleš Brichta to answer questions about the allegedly racist lyrics of the title track on his new album Deratizér (exterminator). The song contains the lines “politicians are making idiots of everybody while gypsies are stealing bicycles in the street, it should be dealt with by an exterminator”. The rock singer denies that the lyrics are racist, saying he employed artistic licence. On Tuesday the far-right Workers’ Party issued a statement condemning what they called the media “humbug” surrounding the song. For his part, Mr Brichta said he had nothing to do with the Workers’ Party; he said their name was reminiscent of the Communist Party, and that such groupings held no attraction for him.

An Ostrava-based support group, the Group of Women Harmed by Sterilization, said on Monday that the last case of a Romany woman sterilized against her will in the Czech Republic took place in 2007. Spokeswoman for the group Elena Goralová said that the woman was now 40 years old, lived in northern Moravia and had four children. A social worker allegedly threatened to take her children away if she refused to undergo sterilization. Minister for Human Rights and Minorities Michael Kocáb informed the government at its Monday session of the allegations.

It is generally assumed that coerced sterilization of Romany women took place in what is now the Czech Republic between 1959 and 2001. Several cases of forced sterilization have since been tried at courts but none of the victims have been compensated.

The town of Litvínov, northern Bohemia, wants to prevent Romanies from simultaneously obtaining social benefits in the Czech Republic and in the UK. The town’s deputy mayor, Martin Klika, said on Monday some Romany families applied for social benefits in Great Britain but regularly return to collect Czech benefits as well. Town officials are planning to contact their colleagues in Britain to find out about how many people might be abusing the welfare system.