RELEASE Project I On 5-6 June 2025, Forum for Human Rights and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and partners organized a two-day transnational workshop in Prague on the United Nations (UN) Treaty Bodies and the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR).

Lawyers from Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, and Poland, along with international experts engaged in an exchange on strategies addressing for using international mechanisms to protect migrant children from detention.

Participants took part in workshop sessions examining individual communications procedure of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the CRC Committee’s General Comments, Concluding Observations, relevant case law, as well as the collective complaints procedure of the European Committee of Social Rights concerning violations of the European Social Charter.

Current and former experts from the UN CRC and the ECSR discussed in detail with participants the composition, working methods and complaints these bodies.

Lawyers presented compelling examples from past litigation brought before lesser known and underutilised international mechanisms, stressing the significant impact of such work. Participants examined recent case law including ICJ and ECRE v. Greece, which together with other actions contributed to the abolition of detention of children under protective custody in Greece. During discussions on litigation strategies, the lawyers involved shared challenges they faced bringing cases before the CRC Committee and the impact of the E.B. et al. v. Belgium and M.B. v. Spain decisions, among others.

“National lawyers and CSOs have far more instruments at their disposal than they currently use on a regular basis, including individual complaints procedures to UN Treaty Bodies and the collective complaints procedure before the ECSR,” said Karolína Babická, ICJ Senior Legal Adviser. “Special procedures can also provide important avenues for redress and advocacy”, she added.

Discussions allowed participants to identify strategic entry points for litigation, share good practices, and exchange advocacy strategies for achieving ratifications where states have not yet signed or ratified an individual or complaint mechanism. In each country represented at the workshop, specific issues were identified for further litigation and advocacy.

“Mechanisms such as the UN CRC benefit significantly from feedback provided by national lawyers. I encourage you to share your experience regularly with Treaty Bodies and other international mechanisms,” said Mikiko Otani , ICJ Commissioner and Former Chair of the CRC.

The UN and Council of Europe mechanisms play a critical role in ensuring that no child is treated as merely an object of migration policy, but rather as a rights-holder who must never be detained.

Download

The agenda is available here.

The ratification status of the discussed international legal instruments in six target countries of the project is summarized in this table.

Background

The Protecting Migrant Children against Detention through the EU Charter (RELEASE) project aims to deepen and expand existing work with a strong focus on strategic litigation and alternatives to detention (AtD) for migrant children at risk of being subjected to unlawful detention or whose rights may be violated  alternatives to detention. The consortium of partners contributes to fostering a favourable EU environment to protect migrant children from detention in Malta – Aditus Foundation; Belgium – Défense des Enfants International-Belgique; the Czech Republic – Forum for Human Rights; Poland – Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights; Greece – Greek Council for Refugees; and Bulgaria – Foundation for Access to Rights.

This workshop is the second in a series of three transnational exchange workshops. In Luxembourg, the first workshop held in April 2025 focused on litigation venues in front of the CJEU. In October 2025, the third workshop will explore strategic litigation before the ECtHR in Athens.

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This project is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The new analysis, Informal Care and Human Rights: The Right to Care from the Perspective of Informal Caregivers, is now available. Written by one of our lawyers, Maroš Matiaško, in cooperation with the Abakus Foundation as part of efforts to advocate for greater service accessibility, the analysis focuses on the legal status of informal caregivers, a topic that remains largely overlooked.

The report highlights that, although international case law shows positive changes, the Czech Republic has yet to systematically address caregivers’ needs. The analysis examines court rulings on caregivers’ rights and offers interpretations to support the right to care.

This analysis was conducted as part of the Social Services – Strategic Litigation project, launched in January 2024. The project focuses on strategic litigation in the area of the inaccessibility of social services for people with disabilities, particularly children and young adults with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. 

We are pleased to present our latest partnership with the Abakus Foundation with whose support FORUM will begin implementing the project Social Services – Strategic Litigation from January 2024.

The project focuses on strategic litigation in the area of the inaccessibility of social services for people with disabilities, particularly children and young adults with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities.

The financial grant from the Abakus Foundation will go towards planning and implementing charitable and public benefit activities that promote and strengthen the rights of carers and persons with disabilities, particularly in the context of the growing pressure to ensure the accessibility of social services.

Learn more about the aim and planned activities of the project here.

For two years now, FORUM has been implementing a project funded by the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture that provides legal aid to victims of torture and other forms of ill-treatment. FORUM has been representing a number of cases pending before different domestic levels that concern inaccessible redress for victims of torture or other forms of ill-treatment, including police violence, and it has specific experience and know-how in this regard.

The case of Valchář v. Czech Republic raises serious issues related to compensation for nonmaterial damage that resulted from police violence and ill-treatment. Apart from the individual level, the case reveals a systemic problem pertinent in the Czech Republic, in particular, that the current legal architecture of redress for ill-treatment raises serious concerns about its compatibility with requirements under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention. The present submission specifically points out that the short six-month statutory time limit to file compensation claims under the State Liability Act (No. 82/1998) hinders victims of ill-treatment from obtaining redress for non-pecuniary damage suffered as a result of human rights violations.

Our intervention in the Valchář case aims to promote the necessary reforms in the Czech legal system to ensure effective access to justice and compensation for victims of any type of police violence and violence in prisons or other places of deprivation of personal freedom.

Amicus curiae version downloadable in pdf.

Brussels, Prague, 24 January 2024: Young Romani activists, part of a volunteer-led project to record and litigate against online hate speech in the Czech Republic, have today released a publication exposing the state of online hate against Roma in the country as well as a policy guide detailing what the government must do if it wants to effectively challenge it. The publications are the culmination of an innovative, volunteer-led process which has successfully demonstrated how Roma can effectively take charge of their rights by recording hate speech and filing criminal complaints against those who seek to incite racial hatred with impunity. The project was organised by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), Romea.cz, and the Forum for Human Rights as part of the ERRC’s Challenging Digital Antigypsyism initiative.

The report Challenging Digital Antigypsyism in the Czech Republic describes how Romani volunteers reported and recorded 245 separate incidents of online racist language against Roma of varying degrees of severity between the spring of 2022 and the summer of 2023. Many of the comments circulated anti-Romani stereotypes, while a significant number focused on refugees and Romani people (including attacks on Romani Ukrainian refugees). Much of the most disturbing hate speech targeted Roma in the context of the Second World War and included comments calling for the annihilation of Roma, Holocaust denial, and expressing sympathy with Nazi ideology. 

The project resulted in criminal complaints being drafted against ten individuals for posting hate speech online. So far, one perpetrator has been put on probation for eight months and ordered to remove the content by the public prosecutor; another of the criminal complaints was classed as a misdemeanour offense and the perpetrator fined; one was dismissed; while the rest are awaiting further action from the police.

The second publication, Prosecuting Digital Antigypsyism: A Policy Guide for the Czech Republic, contains recommendations for the Ministry of Interior, public prosecutors, and law enforcement to better address online hate speech against Roma. It advocates for a proactive approach to deal with online hate speech by state actors, including standardising police procedures when evaluating reported hate speech, plugging certain legislative gaps, more effective coordination across state agencies, the need for continuous education, the creation of preventive programmes, the involvement of the communities, and the engagement of other relevant stakeholders. The document highlights the discrepancy between the volume of hate speech discovered online by Romani activists, and the relatively small number of legal actions taken against perpetrators.

While the primary aim of the volunteers’ work was to identify instances of online hate speech that met the threshold for legal action, the Romani volunteers also unearthed a disturbing degree of widely accepted hate speech and discriminatory content available online. Often, this content did not directly incite violence, but sharing discriminatory language and opinions creates a toxic, racist online environment with the potential for that hate to spill into the real world. The ERRC has been exposing the link between online hate speech and real-world violence for many years and has seen repeatedly how a lack of consequences emboldens racist users to share hate speech online and, ultimately, offline. By documenting the various types of hate speech and the ways in which users take advantage of the apparent anonymity of online spaces, as well as by addressing it through all available channels, projects such as this put Roma at the centre of challenging online hate speech and the threat it poses to democratic societies.

“I think that this project is really important because it shows how dangerous the internet can be. I’m really surprised that there is so much hate speech against Romani people, especially now when Roma refugees from Ukraine are coming to the Czech Republic…It needs to be reported more, and it needs to be controlled more from those social sites. I think there needs to be more projects like this one,” said Veronika Banová, a Romani volunteer and law student at the University of West Bohemia.

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This project was supported by the EVZ Foundation.

This press release is also available in Czech.

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact:

We are thrilled to announce our cooperation with the European Implementation Network (EIN) in their new project focused on safeguarding freedom of expression in the Council of Europe member States. As a participant to this project, we are dedicated to promoting this fundamental right and the effective implementation of the relevant judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as to advocating for reforms aimed at effectively protecting free speech in Slovakia. 

Violations of the right to free speech have become central to the crisis of democratic backsliding in European States. We witness the healthy functioning of democracies being undermined, and sometimes curtailed, by a combination of factors, depending on the jurisdiction, such as draconian defamation laws silencing journalists through court proceedings, the undermining of free debate through excessive ownership of media outlets by the State or its affiliates, and even widespread violence against reporters.

To address these pressing issues, the ECtHR has already issued about 300 leading judgments that identify violations of the right to free speech. However, it is alarming to note that at the time of writing, 50% of the leading free speech judgments handed down by the ECtHR in the last 10 years are still pending implementation. Currently, there are more than 100 leading ECtHR judgements on free speech awaiting implementation.

Together with EIN and other partners, we are committed to championing freedom of expression and upholding democratic values throughout Europe. By actively engaging with the implementation process of ECtHR judgments, we aim at creating lasting reforms that protect and promote free speech across the continent. Stay tuned for updates as we work towards a more inclusive and democratic society.

Forum for Human Rights (FORUM) in cooperation with the group of volunteers active on socia media as ROMAntics and the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) have lodged six criminal complaints against individuals who have posted anti-Roma hate speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube in Slovakia. The complaints are all against individuals who have posted racist statements calling for violence against Roma and were based on evidence gathered by young volunteers and law students known on social media as ROMAntici.

“Since the beginning of the project we have managed to document hundreds of hate speech posts and comments. We have focused on those that incite hatred. Some of them are outrageous, others are even more serious and aim at the extermination of Roma. In some cases, the haters may have committed criminal acts. We have therefore decided to forward selected comments to law enforcement authorities to deal with them,” said Diana Repiščáková, volunteer coordinator and lawyer at the Forum for Human Rights.

Six criminal complaints were prepared against online posts that contained hateful, violent, and inciteful remarks against the Romani community on various social media platforms. The comments include promoting the genocide against the Roma, sympathising with Nazi ideology, and directly inciting hate and violence against Roma and people with disabilities. The organisations argue that the individuals’ online statements violate Section 423 (defamation of nation, race, or beliefs), Section 424 (incitement to national, racial, or ethnic hatred), and Section 360 (dangerous threats) of the Slovak Criminal Code (Act No. 300/2005 Coll).

The evidence supporting these legal actions was gathered by young volunteers working with FORUM within the EU funded international project Challenging online and offline Roma discrimination in Europe (COORDE). These activities are part of the ERRC’s Challenging Digital Antigypsyism project, currently operating in six countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia). The projects aim to challenge hate speech online through volunteer-led action, as well as bring legal complaints to tackle hate speech in the online sphere directly. The organisations urge social media platforms, the Slovak Media Council, and criminal justice authorities to take a more proactive role in combating hate speech, as it has no place in our society. The volunteers involved in the project called on the public to stand with them in condemning hate speech and supporting the Romani community. 

“Although our primary focus, together with ROMAntics, is on reporting hate speech against the Roma community, countless harmful and offensive comments flow through the internet every day, so we are trying to report other groups of hate comments as well, and thus contribute to making the internet a safer place for everyone. Reporting hate speech in this way might seem like a simple matter, but in practice it is not. We encounter hatred, insults and even threats of violence on a daily basis. Therefore, in our project we also take care to think positively and always keep in mind the goal for which we are doing this reporting activity. Therefore, each of you, when you see a hateful comment on social media, you can report it yourself or contact our group and we will take the necessary steps to remove it,” said Ema Krkošová, a law student and volunteer with the ROMAntici group.

“There is a large amount of hate speech on social media directed at the Roma community. These are spread much faster on the Internet than in everyday life, which often causes a certain ‘labelling of Roma’.  This is one of the many reasons why I am monitoring these manifestations. Someone needs to do this for better and safer social networks for all Roma,” stressed Zdenko Farkaš, a Romani activist and volunteer in the ROMAntici group.

“I am happy to be part of a group of volunteers who are involved in activities that have a real impact on society. It is astonishing that today many people still do not realise that they are responsible for hateful statements on the internet,” said Dávid Duda, a volunteer in the ROMAntici group.

The ERRC and FORUM have brought similar criminal complaints in the Czech Republic earlier this year, as well as in October 2022. These are currently under investigation by the Czech Police. The six criminal complaints in Slovakia are the first to be taken in the country under this project. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) highlighted  last year that racism and hate speech are persistent in Slovakia, after a submission from the ERRC.

The ERRC and Forum for Human Rights will closely monitor the next steps taken by the Slovak Police in the criminal complaints. At the same time, this project will continue to explore other legal and non-legal avenues to ensure digital antigypsyism is effectively challenged online. 

The press release can be downloaded here:

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Our activities in the fight against hate speech are co-funded by the European Union within the COORDE: “Challenging online and offline Roma discrimination in Europe (no. 101049651, CERV-2021-EQUAL). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Forum for Human Rights (FORUM) in cooperation with the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) have brought a collective complaint against the municipality of Martin, Slovakia on behalf of Romani families living dangerously near to a landfill on the outskirts of the city. The Roma were relocated to the segregated community named ‘Bambusky’ by the municipality in the late 1990’s, with more arriving in 2008, in accommodation built only metres away from the rubbish dump. The collective complaint has been brought to Martin District Court and alleges discrimination by the municipality based on segregation and the proximity of the municipality-owned housing to hazardous waste.

“This Roma community has lived dangerously near the landfill for more than twenty years. The authorities were aware of this situation and have done nothing to find solutions. The situation is unacceptable and clearly discriminatory. We now turn to the Slovak courts with hope to find justice for the Roma community living in Bambusky, including safe, non-segregated, and dignified housing” said FORUM’s director Alexandra Dubová.

The community of approximately 300 people (including at least 100 children) originated in the late 1990’s when the municipality moved Roma to purpose-built, segregated apartments and shipping containers next to the landfill. Further expansion occurred in 2008, increasing the number of people living in close proximity to the waste. The landfill had been operating since 1994 and was a site storing extremely hazardous waste until 2001, after which it continued as a landfill for regular waste. Shortly after the residents of Bambusky were moved there, they complained about the smell from the nearby landfill as well as the poor hygienic conditions, skin conditions they suffered, and the rats which their children had to guard against. The locality is also without access to basic services such as hot water and public lighting and has poor road access.

“Authorities force Roma onto dirty, dangerous, and polluted land all over Europe. The EU’s new European Green Deal promises – ‘no person and no place left behind’ – all the while Roma are left to rot on landfills, industrial wastelands, and other poisoned environments all over the continent. Segregation of Roma in conditions not fit for human habitation is one of the most visible signs of antigypsyism in our society, and it must be challenged directly by taking those responsible to court” said the ERRC’s President Đorđe Jovanović.

According to the Institute of Environmental Policy, the site is one of the most dangerous landfills in Slovakia. In May 2018, much of it was engulfed in a fire which fortunately did not reach the homes in Bambusky. However, their proximity to the rubbish dump puts the Roma at an increased risk of fires. In 2009, an environmental impact assessment was carried out when the landfill was being enlarged. The assessment allowed the expansion to go ahead, having little regard for the Roma at Bambusky despite detailing the numerous health hazards they face. The report mentions a “residential part of Bambusky for inadaptable citizens” which carries a “risk of the possibility of transmission of infectious and other diseases to humans… by animals coming into contact with the waste (birds, rodents, insects).” The report concludes that the prevailing winds and distance from the landfill mean there should be no negative effects from the landfill faced by the population of the city of Martin, “with the exception of Bambusky.”

In its 2022 report, the Slovak Academy of Sciences’ Forecasting Institute identified Bambusky as one of the three most problematic locations in Slovakia in terms of dwellings in proximity to official landfills. According to the researchers, the risks for Romani communities living close to the landfill are significantly higher than for non-Roma who live in the near area. 

The organisations’ complaint demands that the municipality provide alternative housing in a non-segregated area of Martin which is away from the landfill, or other environments hazardous to human health. The ERRC and Forum for Human Rights are committed to finding justice for this community, whether that comes through the District Court of Martin, a higher Slovak court, or an international human rights tribunal.

Roma are disproportionately forced to live in environmentally hazardous environments across Slovakia. At the lower estimate, there are some 4800 Roma living in close proximity to landfills in the country. Elsewhere in Europe, segregated Romani communities are often found in toxic areas unfit for human habitation. The ERRC has recorded, campaigned, and litigated against numerous similar cases of environmental racism across Europe, including the eviction of Roma from Cluj Napoca to the landfill at Pata Rât, the winter eviction of vulnerable Roma (including pregnant women) in Skopje, North Macedonia to a riverside wasteland without access to water, and the UN’s creation of IDP camps for Roma, Ashkali, and Balkan Egyptians on lead-contaminated land in Mitrovica, Kosovo.

The full press release:

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This work was funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Forum for Human Rights (FORUM) in cooperation with the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) and young Romani volunteers at Romea.cz, have filed five new criminal complaints against individuals who have repeatedly posted racist statements calling for violence against Roma on social media in the Czech Republic. Most of these emerging cases of online hate speech against Roma are linked to the news of the parole of two neo-Nazis responsible for a firebomb attack on a Romani family in Vítkov in 2009. The complaints were filed with the Police Presidium between 13 July 2023 and 9 August 2023. 

“Online hate speech against the Romani community is still extremely widespread on social media. Haters behind computers often believe they are untouchable. But judging from previous cases, we know that the Czech police can find and prosecute these people. With these efforts we hope that social media will become a safer space for everyone,” said Alexandra Dubová, Senior Lawyer at FORUM.  

The organisations argue that the individuals’ online statements violate Section 355 of the Czech Criminal Code (for defamation of an ethnic group) as well as Section 356 (incitement of hatred toward a group of persons) and Section 364 (inciting a criminal act). There are several instances of harmful and offensive comments made by the individuals on various social media platforms. They include comments which promote the genocide of Roma, call for race wars, celebrate the murder of Roma at Lety u Písek concentration camp, and praise the actions of the two neo-Nazis whose attack in 2009 caused severe burns to a 2-year-old Romani girl.

“We have a zero-tolerance approach to hate speech” said the ERRC’s President, Đorđe Jovanović. “Hate speech, whether it is used online or offline, frequently leads to real-world violence for Romani communities. We have compiled evidence of the devastating impact of online hate speech on Romani lives, especially when it is exploited by far-right groups. As online hate speech transcends national borders, we must have a coordinated response to monitor and report online hate speech, to create counter-narratives, and to gather evidence for legal actions. Criminal complaints such as these warn, remind, and reinforce the law which says that such behaviour is unacceptable and has severe consequences.”

The evidence supporting these legal actions was gathered by young Roma volunteering with Czech Romani news portal Romea.cz, as part of the ERRC’s project: Challenging Digital Antigypsyism. The project aims to challenge hate speech online through volunteer-led action, as well as bring legal complaints to tackle hate speech in the online sphere directly. 

Previous criminal complaints brought by the organisations in October 2022 and March 2023 have been investigated by the Czech Police, two perpetrators were already punished in criminal and misdemeanour proceedings. The ERRC and Forum for Human Rights will closely monitor the next steps taken by the Czech Police in the criminal complaints. At the same time, this project will continue to explore other legal and non-legal avenues to ensure digital antigypsyism is effectively challenged online. 

This project was supported by the EVZ Foundation.

Background to the attack in Vítkov:

Two neo-Nazis, part of a North Moravian group responsible for the Molotov cocktail firebomb attack on a Romani family in Vítkov, Opava Region 2009, were released on parole after serving two-thirds of their 20-year sentence. The attack injured three people, including toddler Natálka Kudrikova, who suffered severe burns. The arsonists argued that they were young and naive at the time. The decision to release them on parole shocked the government representative for Roma minority affairs, as well as the victim’s family and supporters. Natálka’s mother expressed disgust and fear for her daughter’s safety.

The attack was part of a broader upsurge in deadly anti-Roma violence orchestrated by neo-Nazi groups across Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic between 2008 and 2010. The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) recorded 48 attacks against Romani lives and property in Hungary, resulting in nine deaths, including two minors. In the Czech Republic, 17 anti-Roma attacks left 11 people, including two children, with injuries, two of which were life-threatening. In Slovakia, ten attacks claimed the lives of two Roma and wounded eight, including two minors. The ERRC also monitored the State response in 44 of the most violent anti-Roma attacks reported to police in the three countries. It found that the judgment in the Vítkov arson case was “far from the standard response to anti-Roma violence in the Czech Republic.”

The press release is availabe here in Czech and English.

Forum for Human Rights together with the grassroot Roma supporting organisation Konexe and the European Roma Rights Centre have filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against the Czech Republic in case of the death of Romani man Stanislav Tomáš in police custody in Teplice in 2021. The Czech Constitutional Court dismissed the organisations’ constitutional appeal in March 2023. The case before the ECtHR was filed on behalf of the sister of Romani man.

“I am very grateful to everyone who is helping me to have my brother’s death properly investigated. I believe that if we cannot find protection in the Czech justice system, we will find it before the European Court of Human Rights” said Mr Tomáš’s sister.

Stanislav Tomáš was forcefully restrained during his arrest on 19 June 2021 by police officers in Teplice and later died. The footage of his arrest was shared on social media and sparked protests across Europe. The video showed a police officer kneeling on Mr Tomáš’s neck in a manner reminiscent of the police killing of the Black American man George Floyd, in May 2020. While the autopsy results released by the police stated that the cause of Stanislav Tomáš’ death was unrelated to the actions of the police, the Czech Deputy Public Defender of Rights’ report on 13th December 2021 found the police responsible for playing a significant role in the death of the Romani man. Her report stated that the police officers delayed calling an ambulance and neglected to monitor Stanislav’s health condition. In addition, she found that the Regional Police Directorate had left out crucial information reported by the first responders about Stanislav collapsing before the arrival of the paramedics in their internal investigation which could amount to a failure to conduct an effective investigation.

FORUM had previously filed a request with the Prosecutor General’s Office to initiate an ‘oversight’ procedure over the death and the subsequent investigation. On the 16th March 2022, the General Inspectorate of Police Services (GIBS) closed their investigation into the conduct of the police officers present at the arrest of Stanislav Tomáš. The Prosecutor General’s Office (Vrchní státní zastupitelství) also confirmed that the decision of the Ústí nad Labem Police Directorate not to open an investigation was lawful, as well as the supervision of the Ústí nad Labem State Prosecution Office. 

“The case demonstrates the persistent problem of police violence against Roma and especially the absence of independent and efficient investigation. It appears that there is a structural problem that should be addressed by the Czech authorities,” emphasised FORUM’s legal counsel and family’s lawyer Maroš Matiaško.

In the applicaiton with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, we argue that the course of the police intervention and the failure to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Stanislav Tomáš have constituted a violation of the right to life, the prohibition of ill-treatment, the right to an effective remedy and the prohibition of discrimination guaranteed in Articles 2, 3, 13 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“We believe the whole case is coming to a successful end, the relatives of Stanislav Tomáš will receive justice, and in the future, this will mean strengthening the safety of Romani people in the Czech Republic and improving the work of the Czech Police in similar situations”, concluded Mirek Brož from KONEXE, an organisation providing ongoing support to relatives of Mr. Tomáš.

The FORUM, KONEXE and ERRC find the Czech authorities’ treatment of the death of Stanislav Tomáš, and the decision to close the investigation, to be an aberration of justice. The inability of Czech Courts to find justice for yet another Romani victim of police brutality has led to this case being brought to the European Court.

“The outcome of the investigation into the death of Stanislav Tomáš was decided from the beginning” said ERRC President Đorđe Jovanović. “Prime Minister Babiš was congratulating the police officers for a job well done long before any investigation had been concluded. The investigators wilfully ignored the testimony of paramedics, and the victim’s guilt was all but decided before the facts were known. The family of Stanislav Tomáš deserves justice. Roma across the Czech Republic, and Roma across Europe, deserve to see justice done in the face of widespread and wanton police brutality.”

The press release to the lodging of the application with the ECtHR is available in English and in Czech on the ERRC’s website togehter with the contact for media.