Senator under fire for allegedly making racist remarks

Romany activists have called for Czech Senator Liana Janackova, who is under fire for allegedly making racist remarks about the Roma minority, to leave her post in the Senate's Human Rights Committee. The senator, who is also mayor of Ostrava's Marianske Hory district, was secretly recorded during a meeting of the local council at which she proclaimed she was a racist, said she was against integration and spoke about putting the Roma minority behind a high electric fence. Although Mrs. Janackova previously questioned the authenticity of the recording and said her words had been taken out of context, on Wednesday she offered to personally apologize to any Romany who felt insulted or threatened by what she said had been "careless and silly behaviour" on her part.

This is not the first time that Liana Janackova is accused of racism. She made headlines in 1997 when she suggested that the state should financially help any Czech Romanies who wanted to emigrate to Canada.