Yesterday the daily Lidové noviny (LN) reported that the new racist group on the Facebook social networking site called “Every Fan Means One Less Gypsy! Let’s Clean Up the Czech Republic!” (“Za 1 fanouška…o 1 cikána méně! Pojďme vyčistit ČR!”), which incites hatred against the Roma and calls for their extermination, no longer has an administrator and cannot be contributed to. Some former administrators of the group claim to have had no idea they were even filling that role. The group was created on 4 November and almost 10 000 people have joined it. Detectives are investigating its creation and its members.
LN reports that the person who founded the group has not contributed to it. The group has had a minimum of four different administrators entrusted with excluding people from the group or erasing their contributions. Two such administrators claim they were assigned the role without asking for it.
“I accepted an invitation to the group without realizing it was racist,” Ondra Zugar told the paper. He left it after realizing what kind of group it was. “Then some people started writing to me saying I was its administrator and I should erase it,” he said, adding that he wants nothing to do with it.
“Police are investigating this Facebook group. However, I cannot publicize what specific steps they are taking at this time,” said police spokesperson Pavla Kopecká, who says police are able to determine who the group’s founder was even if the person is no longer active as its author.
LN reported previously that the commentaries posted by sympathizers of the racist group were very harsh because no administrator was erasing any submissions and contributors could write whatever they wanted. Participants in the discussion called for Roma to be shot or for people to take to the streets armed with brass knuckles and nightsticks.
The group is not the first case of a racist discussion on Facebook. Kopecká says police have already investigated a group called “Final Solution to the Gypsy Question” (“Konečné řešení otázky cikánské”) where similar statements appeared.
