Subject: Appeal
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0 -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
X-Comment: The Transnational Radical Party List
APPEAL TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
An initiative of Radicals from Prague (Olga Cechurova, Ondrej Gina, Petr
Horak, Jan Jarab, Emil Scuka). We hope that it will be taken over by
Radical parliamentarians and that the existence of a transnational party
will prove useful in this respect. We have resorted to this initiative as a
last step after all our efforts to persuade the majority of our deputies
have failed and the recent Parliamentary debate about the law resulted in
the acceptance of a "new" version, which is basically the same as the old
one.
Foreign pressure is today the only way to change this law. If it is not
changed, it could be a step in the Yugoslavian direction.
PLEASE SIGN THIS APPEAL AND SEND IT TO THE CZECH PARLIAMENT AS SOON AS
POSSIBLE.
The proposed text follows.(If necessary, it can be re-formulated.)
APPEAL TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC
We, the undersigned members of the ... Parliament, are increasingly
concerned by the existence and enforcement of the current Law for Czech
Citizenship.
We are aware of the fact that this law discriminates against persons
of Slovak origin residing in the Czech Republic and makes it difficult - in
fact, often impossible - for them to become citizens of the country in
which they have lived for many years, and in which many of them were born.
According to information available to us, tens of thousands of people
resident in the Czech Republic may soon be left without Czech citizenship.
We find especially disturbing that the majority of those afflicted will
probably be members of an already disadvantaged ethnic minority, i.e. the
Romanies (Gypsies).
We believe that the acceptance of such a law, which effectively
disenfranchises an ethnically defined category of the voters from whom the
Parliament's own legitimity is derived, puts the commitment of the Czech
Republic to democratic development into serious doubt. In our opinion, this
law could be viewed as a serious obstacle for the further integration of
the Czech Republic into European structures.
Having the best interests of the Czech Republic in mind, we appeal to
all members of the Czech Parliament to revise this law in order to make the
Czech citizenship equally accessible to all citizens of the former
federation residing on its territory - without retroactive criteria
included in the current version.
