10-year prison sentence for man convicted of rape in Nový Bydžov, Czech Republic

Jindřich Volf has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Regional Court in Hradec Králové for last year’s rape of a 21-year-old woman in Nový Bydžov. In addition to rape he was charged with rioting, theft and making dangerous threats. Volf told the court he did not rape the girl but that she had gone with him voluntarily. The prosecution, however, said the girl is suffering post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the rape.

“The defendant pulled the girl into a telephone booth for the purposes of his own sexual satisfaction, pressed her to him and groped her breasts and thighs,” the state prosecutor said. The young woman, however, started to defend herself. Volf offered to walk her home and kept repeating that he wanted to sleep with her. He eventually pushed her into the alcove of a nearby chapel and demanded oral sex, which she submitted to.

The defendant, however, says the whole situation took place differently. “Yes, she gave me oral sex, but it was voluntary,” Volf told the court, adding that the girl had also voluntarily entered both the phone booth and the alcove with him. He said he did not understand why she was now lying about the incident.

Volf is not an unknown figure in the town. He has confessed to the following incidents: Fighting in a brawl during which he injured two men, stealing CZK 600 from a man, threatening the staff of a bar that he would douse them with paint thinner and set them on fire (a threat he is said to have then repeated to the police officers called to the scene), and attacking another man and threatening his common-law wife.

After the girl was raped, a petition circulated in the town in which people demanded the provision of security. A total of 3 257 people signed it out of a population of 7 000.

Mayor Pavel Louda then issued a racist declaration entitled “The Gypsies have been raping…” . He also announced a series of measures, such as calling on a private security firm to patrol the town and increasing the number of municipal police officers. State police also significantly increased their presence in the town.

Promoters of the Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) gathered in the town in March of this year, doing their best to exploit the tragedy, for which one person was responsible, to their own political advantage and against the Roma minority as a whole. A nonviolent counter-demonstration of the DSSS was organized by local Roma people together with a wide variety of civic associations (including ROMEA,o.s.), politicians and public figures.

The mayor, the municipal registrar, and the police all violated the law during the neo-Nazi demonstration. Despite the obvious manifestations of racism and xenophobia at the demonstration, officials did not disperse it and arrested no one. Police did, however, use mounted officers, stun grenades and truncheons to disperse the counter-demonstrators who wanted to nonviolently blockade the neo-Nazi march.