Vietnamese community recognized as minority group in Czech

Monika Simunkova, a government commissioner for human rights, was cited by the Prague Radio as saying that the Vietnamese community will have its own representative at the Government Council for National Minorities.

The representative from Viet Nam once attended the council as a guest only.

There have been 12 official ethnic groups recognized in the Czech Republic, namely Bulgarians, Croatians, Hungarians, Germans, Poles, Romanians, Rusyns, Russians, Greeks, Serbians and Ukrainians.

Under the Czech Republic’s law, a minority group is formed by those bearing Czech nationality or other groups living in the country who are different from other groups in terms of ethnicity, language, culture, tradition and represent a crowded community.

Once giving an official status as a minority group, that community will have the rights to sign into the local authority’s official documents and announce information about elections in its own language. The people in the group will also have the rights to learn in their mother language as well as other cultural rights, including one for which the State will support them in preserving traditions.  

                                                                                                                       By Ngoc Van