Czech Republic: New Act on Residence of Aliens

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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 14:28:39 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Czech Republic: New Act on Residence of Aliens 

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Markus Pape <[email protected]>

Czech Republic: New Act on Residence of Aliens 


New Act on Residence of Aliens allows discrimination
 
On Jan 1 2000 the new Act no. 326 on Residence of Aliens in the
Territory of the CR and Amendments to some Acts became valid in the
Czech Republic.
 
As a lot of experts and journalists remarked, this new Law is opening
space for wide-spread discrimination of foreigners, who would like to
enter or pass the Czech Republic.
 
Art 5. f.i. says, that an Alien has to present on the request of the
police f.i.
- a confirmation about him being health insured
- a confirmation about accomodation
- a return ticket to his home country
 
The alien also has to fill out a "boarder form" and add "some" photos.
 
That means, that the boarder police CAN require such stuff, but do not
have to.
 
In general, at the current time, nobody knows about the new act and
the new requirements. The police is allowed to grap certain aliens
(f.i. Roma) out of busses passing the boarder and send them back
because of a lack of documents.
 
Art 65 says, that only husbands or wifes of Czech citizens have the
right to get a permanent stay permit, but not husbands or wifes of
foreigners, who have a permanent stay permit already.
 
This means, that a lot of families of foreigners will not be able to
get social benefit or the right to work. This concerns among others a
lot of Roma, who lost citizenship in 1993 and have not gained it yet
again.
 
For further information please see the whole text of the Act on the
web-site of the Czech ministery of the Interior: www.mvcr.cr.

Markus Pape, 
ERRC Prague

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