Spinning the Exodus: Roma Refugees Smeared in Czech Press
All this week, the Czech press has been following the ins and outs of the
possible reintroduction of visas for travel to Canada closely. A final
announcement is expected next week, but in the meantime various allegations
are being made which would be comic if the situation were not so very
serious.
Lidové noviny led the way, publishing an extensive interview with
Roman Krištof, former director of the Czech Government Council for Roma
Community Affairs, who went so far as to allege that some in Canada have a
“professional and financial interest” in the Roma seeking asylum in
Canada. He named Karolína Bánomová of Ústí nad Labem, a former Roma Studies
student at Charles University in Prague who was granted asylum in Canada in
1997, and Paul St. Clair, head of the Roma Community Center in Toronto, as
“prospectors” of Czech Roma asylum seekers. Krištof says he learned of their
involvement when performing “research” in Canada, but has refused to explain
who commissioned his work. His report has not been made public, but in it,
Krištof alleges that Bánomová uses an “informal communications network” to
let interested asylum-seekers know when it might be the “right time” to fly
to Canada and apply for asylum. She allegedly determines this appropriate
timing according to information she receives from members of the Canadian
Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) whose “confidence she enjoys”.
Bánomová and St. Clair responded to these allegations immediately, calling
them completely unfounded and demanding a public apology. Since the
allegations seemed to imply that the IRB was in fact itself engaged in
improper conduct, I contacted Janet Dench, Executive Director of the
Canadian Council for Refugees, the leading NGO for refugees in Canada, to
ask what she thought of the allegations. “It is hard to understand what
they might mean by suggesting IRB insiders give information about
‘appropriate timing,’” Dench said. “In the Canadian refugee
determination system, there are not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ times to make a
claim.”
The Czech media attempt to paint the Roma refugees as somehow illegitimate
continued with Czech interpreter Jan Rotbauer, living in Canada, giving his
“insight” for publication in Thursday’s edition of Mladá fronta DNES.
This particular interpreter first spoke to the Czech media about the Roma
refugees in June; those who subsequently contacted the IRB were told that
while Mr Rotbauer used to work for them, he is no longer being contracted
for this service. That did not stop MfDNES from quoting his
observations of the ins and outs of the refugee process as follows:
“There are situations where the clerk is certainly considering whether
some of the refugees are not abusing the Canadian welfare system. For
instance, if an asylum claimant does not know when his father and mother
were born but he knows all to what he is entitled [sic] in Canada.” Or,
“It is a fact that a certain part of Romanies [sic] return home in a
couple of months… They found out that even in Canada one must earn one's
daily bread.”
It is regrettable that the Czech press is engaged in such an obvious smear
campaign of the Roma seeking asylum in Canada. Given this precedent, we
cannot expect much serious reflection or soul-searching about this issue
from the Czech media should visas be reintroduced. Editors may not realize
that such coverage and the promotion of such spurious “expertise” actually
become further pieces of evidence of the overwhelmingly anti-Roma sentiment
prevalent in this country. Such journalism says more about the environment
the Roma are fleeing than it does about any “false” asylum claims.
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All this week, the Czech press has been following the ins and outs of the
possible reintroduction of visas for travel to Canada closely. A final
announcement is expected next week, but in the meantime various allegations
are being made which would be comic if the situation were not so very
serious.
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