Sterilizing Roma women in the Czech Republic

Just hours after her second child was born, 19-year-old Helena Ferencikova's joy was dashed. In the recovery room, she discovered that the paper she had signed, not knowing what it said, had allowed doctors to sterilize her.

The Vitkovicka hospital in the northeastern Czech Republic says further pregnancies might have killed her. But Ferencikova believes the reason was her ethnicity - Gypsy.

Now a court ruling and a high-profile official inquiry have backed her up, and the country is having to confront the charge that an abuse many thought had died with communism is still being practiced. Read more

db: Some of the nicest people you are ever likely to meet - in what they call the 'heart' of Europe - would have no problem with this. It's not just the Czechs.