Wednesday, February 28, 2001

Glitches plague census process National tally of citizens, foreigners gets bogged down in controversy and confusion By Theodore Schwinke If you're a foreigner living in the Czech Republic -- or just here for the weekend -- you're about to become a statistic. The country is putting citizens and visitors through their first census since 1991. But the count, which began Feb. 22 and includes foreigners, isn't going as smoothly as planned. English teacher Eric Johnson received a knock on his door on Feb. 23. "There were two of them, and a supervisor who hovered in the background," said Johnson, 43. "He stepped in when he saw we couldn't communicate." After a brief, friendly exchange in English with the supervisor, Johnson was left with forms and instructions in Czech, but with little indication what he should do with the completed questionnaires. According to Czech Statistical Office (CSU) spokeswoman Vladimira Pavlickova, foreigners like Johnson should be provided with forms and instructions in their native language, be it English, Arabic or Chinese. "That was the commissioners' mistake. They didn't fulfill their duty," Pavlickova said. "Every commissioner should give his name and a contact for his inspector," she said, adding that complaints should be directed to inspectors at district offices. Through March 12, employees of the CSU will go door to door, even visiting hotels and hospitals and approaching the homeless in an effort to have as complete a count as possible. Despite the confusion, Johnson isn't disturbed by the census. "The forms look very friendly. I like the colors of the forms and the smiley-face logo. It makes me feel like the census is my friend," he added with a laugh. "It doesn't look communist or forbearing at all." Comparing the process to his experiences in his native Detroit, Johnson said: "I think the Czech census workers were friendlier." The census has been hotly debated. Many have criticized it as an invasion of privacy. Three-fifths of Czechs fear the data will be misused, according to the STEM polling agency. Although criticized as an invasion of privacy, the census contains few questions that would be considered intrusive by most Westerners. Czech citizens are obliged to answer 44 questions on subjects ranging from their level of education to whether their home has hot water. While census commissioners want to know the source of a person's income, they're not interested in how much money residents make. Foreigners visiting for up to 90 days have to provide only their name, date of birth, citizenship, gender and type of visa they have, Pavlickova said. Commissioners are under an oath of confidentiality and are not authorized to check the validity of the answers. Anyone who refuses to take part in the census may be liable for criminal action, however, with a penalty of up to 10,000 Kc ($270). Residents may complete the form while the commissioners wait and receive a receipt. Otherwise they have until March 12 to return completed forms to their local district council (listed in the Yellow Pages under mistni urady or obvodni urady) or to the regional statistics office. Questions may be directed to a toll-free helpline (Tel. 0800 13 20 01), but Pavlickova admitted the line is largely inaccessible due to a flood of calls. The information collected during the census will join other statistical data on hand at the CSU, which provides information to various state and international agencies. Much of this information is available to the public at www.czso.cz. The statistics office will begin releasing preliminary data from the census in July, but the final results will not be ready until 2003. -- Jana Janovska contributed to this report. Theodore Schwinke's e-mail address is tschwinke@praguepost.cz