Czech Attitudes Towards Refugees
Mischa is currently doing an internship at "International Young Nature Friends" (IYNF) in Prague. Together with Henrique from IYNF, he did some research on the current situation of refugees in Czech Republic and the attitudes of Czech people towards them:
Since the start of the refugee crisis in 2015, the arrival of refugees in Central and Eastern Europe has been generally received with anger and hostility by the majority of the population. The Czech Republic is no exception. As of September 2015, 69% of Czechs were against accepting refugees from the Middle East & Africa, and only 4% were in favor of accepting any refugees permanently, and these figures are probably even higher today.
This attitude is mirrored at the political level. The Czech people joined Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in voting against the EU’s plans to impose refugee quotas to distribute asylum seekers across member state, putting the Prague government on a collision course with Brussels. The UN has also accused the Czech government of systematic human rights violations for detaining refugees for up to 90 days, sometimes strip searching them for money to pay for their own detention. The Czech government defended detention centers as a “message” to deter other refugees.
The current Czech President, Milos Zeman, has been pushing an anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim narrative, referring to a “tsunami” of “marauding refugee criminals” entering the country. The mainstream media has also helped him in this task, by systematically equating refugees with Muslims, and Muslims with terrorists. Like Trump and Viktor Orban, Zeman has become notorious for making factually incorrect and Islamophobic statements, such as “90% of refugees are economic migrants”, and referring to the “criminal” Islamists “who are coming to subjugate Europe”. 72% of Czechs agree with Zeman’s position on refugees, and almost every mainstream party has espoused some form of anti-refugee rhetoric.
To conclude, the widespread intolerance of refugees in the Czech Republic can be partly understood in light of its increasingly xenophobic discourse, which has conflated refugees with Islam and terrorism. This has made Czechs easily manipulated by politicians such as Zeman and the media into fearing a non-existent danger. The total lack of empathy for refugees in the Czech Republic is disturbing: the debate is framed in terms of what Czechs stand to gain from accepting refugees, with almost no mention of helping them because they are fellow human beings in need. However, it is worth noting that small but vocal Czech NGOs, such as OSF Prague, are actively fighting for the rights and wellbeing of refugees.
Author: Mischa Snaije and Henrique Gonçalves
Since the start of the refugee crisis in 2015, the arrival of refugees in Central and Eastern Europe has been generally received with anger and hostility by the majority of the population. The Czech Republic is no exception. As of September 2015, 69% of Czechs were against accepting refugees from the Middle East & Africa, and only 4% were in favor of accepting any refugees permanently, and these figures are probably even higher today.
This attitude is mirrored at the political level. The Czech people joined Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in voting against the EU’s plans to impose refugee quotas to distribute asylum seekers across member state, putting the Prague government on a collision course with Brussels. The UN has also accused the Czech government of systematic human rights violations for detaining refugees for up to 90 days, sometimes strip searching them for money to pay for their own detention. The Czech government defended detention centers as a “message” to deter other refugees.
This is especially surprising when one considers
that there are currently only 12 refugees in the Czech Republic, and a tiny
Muslim population of 11 000 (out of a population of 10.5 million). The Czech
Republic lies to the north of the main migration route from the Balkans to
Germany, and has seen relatively small numbers of refugees passing through it.
It is also worth mentioning that the Czech Republic has seen growing wages and
record low unemployment rates (the lowest in Europe at 3.3%), ruling out
economic downturn as the cause for these attitudes.
The current Czech President, Milos Zeman, has been pushing an anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim narrative, referring to a “tsunami” of “marauding refugee criminals” entering the country. The mainstream media has also helped him in this task, by systematically equating refugees with Muslims, and Muslims with terrorists. Like Trump and Viktor Orban, Zeman has become notorious for making factually incorrect and Islamophobic statements, such as “90% of refugees are economic migrants”, and referring to the “criminal” Islamists “who are coming to subjugate Europe”. 72% of Czechs agree with Zeman’s position on refugees, and almost every mainstream party has espoused some form of anti-refugee rhetoric.
In recent elections, the far-right SPD party has done especially
well, winning over 10% of the vote, putting it neck to neck with the
mainstream parties. The SPD is led by MP Tomio Okamura, ironically himself
partly Japanese, who has pounced on the anti-foreigner and Euroskeptic mood in
the country, declaring that “we push for zero tolerance of migration” and that
“we refuse the multicultural European superstate”. The rise of the SPD suggests
that the Czech Republic is following the path of other Visagrad countries
towards “illiberal democracy”, based on xenophobia, and a form of ethnic
nationalism.
To conclude, the widespread intolerance of refugees in the Czech Republic can be partly understood in light of its increasingly xenophobic discourse, which has conflated refugees with Islam and terrorism. This has made Czechs easily manipulated by politicians such as Zeman and the media into fearing a non-existent danger. The total lack of empathy for refugees in the Czech Republic is disturbing: the debate is framed in terms of what Czechs stand to gain from accepting refugees, with almost no mention of helping them because they are fellow human beings in need. However, it is worth noting that small but vocal Czech NGOs, such as OSF Prague, are actively fighting for the rights and wellbeing of refugees.
Author: Mischa Snaije and Henrique Gonçalves
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