This report, part of the ‘Empowering Communities in Europe’ initiative of the British Council, concerns attitudes towards migrants and refugees in the Czech Republic. The report’s authors examine the legal and factual background of migration in the Czech Republic and how the Czech public views immigrants and refugees.

The report consists of three parts:

• The first part presents basic facts about immigration in the Czech Republic, recent trends in the country’s migration policy, changes in public attitudes towards migrants and refugees since 2015, public discourse, and the role of the media and civil society.
• The second part of the report expands on these topics by presenting the results of focus group interviews with young people conducted in two Czech towns. The focus group interviews were focused on the participants’ experiences with refugees and other migrants, their attitudes towards hate-speech and violence against refugees, their arguments against the reception of refugees, their responses to pro-refugee arguments, and sources of information on these topics.
• The report concludes that despite the relatively low number of refugees coming to the Czech Republic after 2015, the issue has become strongly politicised. Consequently, despite acts of physical violence against migrants being rare, the tone of public debate has become rough, and verbal attacks against migrants (and those who express support for them) have become an everyday occurrence.

The authors recommend that NGOs cooperate more with the media on the subjects of immigration, international protection and integration; step out of their ‘bubbles’ of like-minded individuals; and build coalitions with external actors with similar interests, such as schools, cultural organisations, local administrations, academic institutions, etc.

Read the report 

See other reports in this series for Poland, Croatia and Bulgaria.