David Stulik, Czech diplomat, on the attitude towards ethnic minorities

Society

Recently, Czech Republic has become a country which officially recognised Soviet crimes against Crimean Tatar nation and recognised the 1944 Deportation of Crimean Tatars as an act of genocide. What exactly contributed to the Czech Senate passing this important resolution? What is Czech Republic’s policy on human rights and ethnic minority rights? How does the attitude of the majority of ethnic Czechs change towards their country’s minorities and does the fact that Czech Republic is an EU member help? How are Roma integration processes into the Czech society? And how does this correlate with the preservation of the Roma community’s identity in the Czech Republic? And also: about the shaping of the Ukrainian political nation: all of the above will be discussed in our podcast: «Ai Tu Jianes. Did you know that?», Today, Svitlana Mialyk invited David Stulik, a Czech Diplomat, Special Envoy of Czech Foreign Ministry for Eastern Partnership Matters. 

As we were covering topics related to the Czech policy towards ethnic minorities, David Stulik mentioned that political traditions of Vaclav Havel (the first president of the Czech Republic – ed.) stipulate that international relations must include not only geopolitical processes but also aspects like human rights and rights of minorities.

«Czech Republic is in the European Union where respect for human rights and rights of minorities an issue of paramount importance on the agenda. This is why we manage to integrate more and more of our fellow Roma citizens into the life of society.

Czech Republic becomes an increasingly tolerant society, a society based not on ethnicity but on fundamentals of civil society—which is most important.

It does not matter which ethnic group or which minority a person belongs to if he or she takes up arms to defend Ukraine.

A Ukrainian political nation was born—one based not on the Ukrainian ethnicity but on the values which are in place now, values the Ukrainian state is currently associated with.It all began with the Revolution of Dignity (Euromaidan). Dignity is a notion not tied to any ethnicity; it is a human concept shared by people of diverse origins. That is why, Ukrainian Roma can share these value and identify themselves with these values. Same pertains to Ukrainian Poles or Ukrainian Crimean Tatars. They all then become political Ukrainians. This is how I address this concept», – says David Stulik.

You can listen to the full version of this podcast by opening the audio file attached.