Far-right Czech lawmaker calls for halting welfare payments to Ukrainian refugees

Filed 8h ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Dance of the Tuba Plum Fairy

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: "Copyright 1955 Paramount Pictures Corporation" · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Tomio Okamura, the far-right speaker of the Czech Parliament's Chamber of Deputies, proposed halting all state welfare payments to Ukrainian refugees, citing roughly 12 billion crowns ($576 million) in combined humanitarian aid and health insurance costs.

Okamura's party wants to end temporary protection status for Ukrainians, cancel benefits, and deport rule violators. He noted the Czech Republic hosts about 398,000 Ukrainian refugees, the highest per capita rate in the EU.

Ukraine's ambassador to Czechia previously called Okamura's rhetoric 'offensive and full of hatred,' and Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has attributed his positions to Russian propaganda influence.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Funny how a budget shortfall always seems to get blamed on the newest folks in town rather than, say, the ones proposing the cuts. Okamura's math adds up to a tidy sum on paper, but the arithmetic of who actually gets squeezed tells the real story. A guy who spent his New Year's speech worrying about Ukrainian 'golden toilets' isn't exactly starting from a place of good faith.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Dance of the Tuba Plum Fairy · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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