Lety: the subject of renewed debatea Talking Point preview
On Saturday, Roma activists and their supporters gathered at Lety near
Pisekthe site of a WWII internment camp where over 300 Roma diedto
protect a sacred memorial, and to protest against the gathering of the
Czech Republic's National Party, who claim that Roma died in Lety because
of common disease, and not the conditions imposed by a concentration camp.
Linda Mastalir was there and brings us a preview of a longer feature that
will air on Tuesday.
Lety near Pisek, the site of a WWII Roma concentration camp, is in the news
againthis time because the Czech Republic's National Party, a right-wing
extremist organization, has its own version of what happened at Lety
between 1942 and 1945. Petra Edelmann, the National Party leader, says
that there was no concentration camp there at all. Her views have provoked
strong reaction as we saw at the weekend.
On Saturday, shouting "Stop Nazism!" Markus Pape, a lawyer and
human rights activist, tried to intervene against the gathering of the
National Party in Lety, but in the end he was taken into custody by police
for disrupting an organized gathering. Now the controversy over the Lety
site has been further inflamed. Many sympathise with Mr Pape and are
appalled by the far-right party's stance on the Roma, but others say the
extremists only reflect wider discriminatory views held by many people in
this country.
"Unfortunately, to me it's still a very set indicator that parties
know that the anti-Roma sentiment in this country is a politically
successful tactic to get extremist voters to go along with them."
That was Gwendelyn Albert, Director of the League of Human Rights. More on
this story in Tuesday's Talking Point.
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Lety near Pisek, the site of a WWII Roma concentration camp, is in the news
againthis time because the Czech Republic's National Party, a right-wing
extremist organization, has its own version of what happened at Lety
between 1942 and 1945. Petra Edelmann, the National Party leader, says
that there was no concentration camp there at all. Her views have provoked
strong reaction as we saw at the weekend.
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