PRAGUE, Czech Republic, July 16 (UPI) -- Czech homeless advocates say a plan to remove the homeless from downtown Prague and to keep them off public transportation is too harsh.
Dagmar Kocmankova, director of the magazine Novy Prostor or New Space, said that some of the city's policies violate basic human rights, CTK reported. The magazine's profits are used for the homeless.
She is especially opposed to a central registry of the homeless.
"We think it clashes with basic human rights if some people are to be entered in a data base with their personal data to be stored for 10 years. It is basically unclear how they will get out of it," she said.
Jiri Janecek, in charge of social policy for the Prague city council, said that the plan is the first comprehensive one in the Czech Republic and is modeled on what has worked well in foreign cities.
He said that about 2,000 people are believed to be sleeping in the streets in Prague.
Kokmankova praised one aspect of the plan, a mobile health service to provide medical care on the street. Janecek said that many of the homeless suffer from diseases they could pass on to others.
