Seventy politicians and activists protest against pig farm in Lety

More than 70 MEPs, members of national parliaments and activists from 22 European countries have signed an appeal for the removal of a pig farm in Lety, south Bohemia, built on the site of a former Romany internment camp, the civic association Konexe said on Friday. The signatories include former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, Italian Literature Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo and former Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. According to the petition, the pitiful state of the locality reflects the persecution and discrimination that Romanies still face in Europe today. Several Czech governments pledged to remove the pig farm from Lety but failed to find money for a buyout. Some 1,300 Czech Romanies passed through the camp between 1940 and 1943; round 330 of them died there, while another 500 were deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.