Chair of Prague DSSS celebrates ultra-right terrorist murdering woman in USA
The chair of the Prague regional branch of the Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS), Jiří Petřivalský, has used his Facebook profile to praise the recent neo-Nazi terror attack in the USA. Speaking as a leader of the Czech ultra-right, he commented not just on the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, but also on the deaths of the police officers who died during a helicopter crash when responding to the riot by posting the “score” of “3:0”.
The assembly of American neo-Nazis in Virginia last weekend was attended by Matthew Heimbach, an activist whom the DSSS regularly invites to its own events here in the Czech Republic. “During clashes between the ultra-right and antifascists in Virginia three people have died so far. One antifascist who was run over by a car and two police officers who went down with their helicopter. That counts as 3:0, right?” Petřivalský posted to his Facebook profile.
During Saturday’s demonstration in Charlottesville, 20-year-old neo-Nazi James Alex Fields drove a car into a crowd of those counter-protesting against the white radicals, killing Heather Heyer. The 48-year-old police pilot and his 40-year-old crew member died when their helicopter crashed near Charlottesville just after they responded to the unrest provoked by the neo-Nazi assembly.
The violent neo-Nazi gathering in Charlottesville was attended by neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach, the co-founder of the American neo-Nazi “Traditionalist Workers Party” (TWP), wearing a helmet reminiscent of a Nazi SS uniform. Heimbach has been invited by the DSSS repeatedly to visit the Czech Republic.
Heimbach was most recently here in September 2016 when, at the invitation of the DSSS, he attended a demonstration called “Together for Leaving the EU!”, convened by the Islamophobe Lucie Hašková from the “For Our Culture and a Safe Country” group (Za naši kulturu a bezpečnou zem). Besides attending the demonstration he also met with the DSSS chair Tomáš Vandas and with several other party members.
Photographs of the Prague demonstration posted to online social networks by both the DSSS and Heimbach show him, for example, with Petr Gunther, with convicted racist murderer Vlastimil Pechanec, and with Petřivalský. There are also photos of him with the DSSS chair.
Heimbach also attended a demonstration by the DSSS on 17 November 2014 in Brno. He is a founding member of the TWP.
During his studies at Towson University in Maryland, Heimbach established a white racist group. He led his “White Student Union” in patrols targeting African-Americans.
The “nighttime patrols” numbered between five and seven people and were meant to demonstrate an effort to combat “black crime” despite the fact that African-Americans comprised just a small percentage of Towson students and the school campus was practically one of the safest places in the area. Heimbach also actively supported the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
At a Trump rally in March 2016 Heimbach gained notoriety for insulting and pushing an African-American woman. The TWP logo features a white cogwheel with a four-pronged symbol inside it.
The party frequently also uses a version that is very similar to Nazi iconography, with an eagle carrying the logo instead of the Nazi swastika. Their flag with the four- pronged symbol also flew on Wenceslas Square in Prague last year.
Charlottesville, a university town in Virginia, became the scene of the strongest racist demonstrations in the USA in a long time last weekend. Hundreds of neo-Nazis and white racists marched through the center of town shouting racist slogans, with many giving the Nazi salute or visibly wearing Nazi symbols.
When a crowd of locals made their resistance to neo-Nazi and racist ideologies known, clashes broke out. The most tragic moment was when one of the white radicals drove a car into a group of peacefully protesting people and, according to eyewitnesses, broke through the crowd with his foot on the accelerator, klilling a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 people.
