Third of Czechs uncomfortable living next door to people of different skin colour, poll finds

Third of Czechs uncomfortable living next door to people of different skin colour, poll finds
The poll findings could reasonably be interpreted to represent the current anti-migrant stance of much of Central Europe. / Moyan Brenn, via CC
By Henry Kirby in London April 14, 2016

One in three Czechs would not want to live next door to someone with different coloured skin to them, a poll by the Prague-based Centre for Public Opinion Research (CVVM) has found.

The poll, conducted between March 7-14, asked respondents to name the types of people with whom they would not want to be neighbours. As the first bneChart shows, addicts, alcoholics and those with criminal pasts were the type or people who respondents cited the most, with 88% claiming they would not live next door to addicts and 74% naming alcoholics and ex-criminals. The fourth most-named type of people were the mentally ill, at 68%.

After that, 36% of respondents named people with different coloured skin as undesirable neighbours, followed by foreigners living in the Czech Republic (33%) and people who hold different religious beliefs (23%).

A predominantly white, Slavic nation, the implicit message of the survey findings is that those polled would be uncomfortable living next door to people with darker skin. Combined with the figures for non-Czechs and for religious minorities, the poll findings could reasonably be interpreted to represent the current anti-migrant stance of many Central European countries.

The Visegrad nations of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have increasingly emerged as thorns in the side of the EU and its attempts to mandate the distribution of migrants escaping the conflicts in the Middle East around the EU member states.

The Czech Senate last month publicly opposed the EU-Turkey agreement, which proposes a system whereby one Syrian refugee will be resettled in the EU for every migrant found illegally entering the Greek Islands from Turkey being returned.

A poll earlier this year, also conducted by CVVM, found that Czechs’ opinions of Western European EU members have deteriorated dramatically since the beginning of the migrant crisis.

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