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11. 02. 10. - 16:00

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11. 02. 10. - 16:00

Czech senator angry about Croat´s lawsuit

Croatian Times

Czech Senator Jaromir Stetina has sent an explosive letter to "American colleagues" on the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The letter is a reaction to a suit against the Czech Republic by a Croat who claimed national discrimination.

The Czech Republic is charged with human-rights violations at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Snjezana Pelivan, a Croat who has resided in Prague since 1995, claims the Czech Republic failed to safeguard her rights to non-discrimination and a fair trial.

Pelivan was employed as a marketing manager by American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). After several years of work, her employment was terminated in June 2005 without any reason, prior warning or previous disciplinary measures and without severance pay.

Stetina warns in his letter that Prague RFE/RL employees are divided into three castes. The first includes American citizens who enjoy the protections provided by the Federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. Czech citizens are protected by the Czech Labour Code.  Unfortunately, employees from third countries "enjoy" zero protection.

He said RFE/RL hires its foreign employees using labour contracts that explicitly deny them protections and guarantees automatically granted to any employee in the country by Czech labour laws.

In fact, foreigners employed by RFE/RL in Prague may be fired at any time, for any reason and even without severance pay.

Pelivan and Armenian citizen Anna Karapetian refused to accept "shut-up" money and took RFE/RL to court. Thus, for the first time, nationally discriminatory labour policies and actions practiced by American RFE/RL in the Czech Republic were publicly exposed.

Accusing the Czech Republic as the RFE/RL host country of having violated the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Snjezana Pelivan took her case to the Strasbourg court.

Stetina added: "The Czech Republic was and remains a very hospitable country to American RFE/RL. However, the Czech Republic definitely does not deserve the price it is now paying for its hospitality to RFE/RL. Legal gimmicks and court tricks aside, it is patently indecent, unfair, cynical and hypo-critical to exploit for bureaucratic ends the sad fact that many highly- qualified foreign professionals working for RFE/RL are stateless persons, dissidents, political refugees who, being cut off from their native countries, are existentially dependent on their employment with RFE/RL. Placed by RFE/RL in a legal vacuum in the Czech Republic, they simply don’t risk protesting their status of having no rights."

Stetina asked US Senators to stop the harmful lawsuits. He believes RFE/RL should be instructed to make a peaceful offer to the plaintiffs, Snjezana Pelivan and Anna Karapetian, and to abandon its discriminatory employment policies.

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