#1: -  

Dear Mr. Minister,

As citizens of the Czech Republic, we only now have learnt from our media that you asked in September the Czech Government, specifically the Czech Minister of the Interior, Mr Hamáček, to help with refugee children residing in your territory who need urgent assistance.

We are very indignant and embarrassed that our political representation has not responded to your call at all - only now, after a media pressure, they take position to it, but again in a very sad and undignified manner (both the Minister and the Prime Minister). We are convinced that the vast majority of citizens of our country would not refuse to help a child in danger if they met him or her face to face or even if they knew their story remotely. A huge number of our citizens are helping others and some of them are refugees in Greece and on the Balkan route. Unfortunately, the situation is different when you need the help you are seeking - to take the most vulnerable directly to our country. Our co-citizens, from the most part, do not have the experience of such assistance and there are various concerns. This is being abused by populists, and it is overwhelming for us to see how even the fates of children are subject to misinformation and political calculations - all because of the weakness of politicians and their fear of loosing potential votes. It is also the convenience and inability to explain to people the basic fact that children are not responsible for war, and that our refugees have been helped in the past (for example by Sir Nicholas Winton and the United Kingdom). We do not understand the rejection also because, as an example, there has been a civic initiative - Czechs Help - existent in the Czech Republic for over a year now. This initiative has managed to get more than enough concrete people who offered to help children in our country. So even from a purely economic point of view it would cost the Czech state a minimum while it could partially improve our badly damaged international reputation in this area. The overall balance should be clearly positive as we have the confidence in our country’s ability to assess the risks of offering a new home to 40 children in need. On the contrary, it is very dangerous for Europe to leave them for years in despair and uncertainty of refugee camps.

To close with, we would like to primarily state that we are a country of proud and hardworking people who are not afraid to take care of 40 children. We want to distance ourselves from the position that our government chose to take on this matter and state that it motivates us even more to help (by organising collections etc.) refugees in Greece before the coming winter. At the same time, we hope that our government will change their position on this, will preserve the dignity of the Czech Republic and, above all, will help specific children in need.

Thank you for addressing our country and other countries, and we ask that you to please continue doing so towards our politicians. We will persist in asking them as well. Together, we all have a responsibility to end the untold suffering on the borders of our Europe.