governing body of Czech Television. In May, of residents. The amendment allowed Reporters Without Borders expressed municipalities to declare zones of “socially concerns about the risk of increased political pathological behaviour”, residents of which pressure on the public broadcaster following were barred from claiming some housing the election of new members of the Czech benefits. NGOs had criticized the Television Council. amendment in the past as disproportionately DISCRIMINATION targeting Roma and poor people. LGBTI PEOPLE ROMA In January, the Constitutional Court rejected a Roma children continued to experience regional court’s proposal to amend a law that discriminatory segregation in schools. prevents recognition of adoptions from A Roma man, Stanislav Tomáš, died during abroad by same-sex couples who live in the a police intervention against him in the town Czech Republic. The law permits adoptions of Teplice on 19 June. According to video by married couples only. footage from the arrest, published by the In April, the lower chamber of the news server Romea.cz, three police officers parliament approved the first reading of a bill used force against him. The video showed allowing same-sex marriage. The parliament Stanislav Tomáš lying on the ground while did not further discuss the bill before the one of the officers knelt on his neck during October elections. the entire intervention.1 On 26 July, the Police Inspectorate informed Amnesty GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE International that the police intervened Five years after signing the Council of Europe because of Stanislav Tomáš‘s “aggressive Convention on preventing and combating behaviour that escalated and turned against violence against women and domestic the intervening police officer.” The minister of violence (Istanbul Convention), the Czech interior stated in July that the autopsy Republic had yet to ratify it. In March, the identified drug overdose as a possible cause government plenipotentiary for human rights of death, and that the police did not restrict stated that, following the October breathing or blood flow. In December, the parliamentary elections, the new government deputy Public Defender of Rights published will decide whether to propose ratification to her investigation into the case, which found the parliament. that police officers made significant errors during the intervention. In particular, she REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS noted that the police failed to ensure that In August, the government accepted 170 their coercive methods did not cause Afghans as part of the Czech Republic’s disproportionate harm. evacuation operations from Afghanistan. Also In July, the Senate voted for a bill to in August, the Minister of Interior stated that compensate thousands of Roma women who the government’s priority was to ensure that were unlawfully sterilized by the authorities the tension in Afghanistan “would not lead to 2 between 1966 and 2012. Survivors of another migration wave” and to prevent a unlawful sterilizations will each be eligible for “crisis on the external EU borders”. compensation of 300,000 CZK (€11,800), In September, during the parliamentary which must be applied for through the election campaign, then prime minister Ministry of Health within three years of 1 Andrej Babiš used billboards with anti- January 2022, when the law enters into immigration messages stating “I will defend force. you from illegal migrants. To my dying In August, the Constitutional Court set aside breath.” an amendment to the law on welfare benefits The government continued to refuse to on the grounds that it would be participate in any relocation efforts within the discriminatory and exclude certain categories Amnesty International Report 2021/22 144