Commentary: Czech media exaggerate significance of crimes involving Roma

Hundreds of serious violent crimes, including murders, are committed annually in the Czech Republic, but during the past few months no other case has received as much media coverage as that of a nighttime conflict between several drunken citizens in the small northern town of Duchcov. Everyone involved in the incident, including the state prosecutor, agrees that the conflict resulted not just in grave physical harm but, as both the state prosecutor and the attorney for the victims agree, it resulted in grave psychological harm to one of the victims, who has been prevented from returning to normal life for some time now. 

Why is it that the media prefer to report on such a case instead of on the scandals resulting in brutal murder, or cases of grievous bodily harm being inflicted on many people? The reasons for this are many and varied.

Several years ago, the Czech media followed the trial of the arson attack committed by neo-Nazis against Romani people in the town of Vítkov with a similar intensity – television stations even broadcast the concluding arguments and the declaration of the first-instance verdict live. While the injuries caused in that case cannot be compared to the Duchcov incident, as they were far more serious, a wave of protest arose at the time against the media for its allegedly one-sided position "against whites". 

Today some media apparently want to atone for that "mistake" by latching on like frenzied pit bulls to cases such as the "machete attack" in Nový Bor, which involved Romani people, or now to the Duchcov case. Another reason for their interest could be that the Duchcov case sparked unprecedented anti-Romani protests across the country after police video footage of part of the conflict was made public.  

What is so compelling about the content of this case that thousands of people suddenly took to the street over it? According to the video, a "white" woman was extremely humiliated during it – she never physically attacked anyone herself, but was kicked in various parts of her body, including her head, as she lay prone on the ground.

No one is going to stand for that, especially at a time when almost no one in the country wants to have a person as a neighbor whose ethnic background is the same as the defendants’ in this case. Moreover, the trial against the five defendants in the Duchcov incident is not open to the public because one of the defendants is a juvenile and the law requires that his identity be protected from the media. 

Despite the closed trial, most of the statewide media have not forgotten to publish at least one juicy article about Duchcov after each day of hearings. Even though the media cannot directly comment on events in the courtroom, they have conveyed either the random impressions of the witnesses or a repetition of what has already been believed, discovered, or written. 

Before the verdict is announced on 19 March, let’s try to summarize the basic facts. Why is this case before the Regional Court?

According to the indictment, one of the defendants, the juvenile, together with another person, attempted to assault someone and steal his motorbike – and he did this immediately before the infamous argument later that night. If it can be proven that he committed the same offense of assault more than once, it will be possible to increase his sentencing.

For most of the others involved in the conflict, the charges are for less serious crimes, which would ordinarily be handled in District Court. This means that because of the situation of just one defendant, the public has the impression that this incident involved a major crime.

In her concluding arguments, the state prosecutor is ruling out the option of asserting that the defendants committed their crimes with racial motivation, but she does recognize the findings of expert evaluations confirming that one of the wronged parties has suffered grave psychological harm. This is why she is insisting on classifying the crime per Section 145, 1 of the Criminal Code, i.e., as grievous bodily harm – but for some of the defendants, she is requesting the lowest possible punishment, a three-year prison sentence.

Because the prosecutor believes the juvenile defendant committed the same crime repeatedly that evening, she is also charging him under the second paragraph of Section 145, where the required sentence for an adult would be between five and 12 years. To someone unfamiliar with the law, the fact that she is seeking a five-year prison sentence for him could seem either like too short of a sentence, or too strict of one.

In fact, however, that sentence is just half what he could be sentenced to by law if he had committed the crime as an adult. This means the state prosecutor is actually proposing that the juvenile defendant receive a sentence closer to the upper end of the scale (which is 12 years for adults and six for juveniles).

However, for some of the defendants, the court may still reclassify their crimes as falling under Section 146 (lightweight harm) unless it is proved that they intend to commit grave harm, were seriously under the influence of alcohol, and acted in the heat of passion. If these crimes are reclassified, a significantly lower sentencing rate would then apply and would ensure suspended sentences for those defendants who had clean criminal records prior to this or whose previous convictions have been stricken from the record. 

Why is the state prosecutor making such distinctions among the defendants when the attack is being discussed in the media as a joint endeavor? Because some of the adult defendants were not present at the beginning of the conflict. 

These people were out on the terrace of their single-family home, peacefully celebrating a relative’s birthday, when they suddenly witnessed the brawl between the husband of the couple and the juvenile assailant, whom they know and considered "theirs". In a drunken state, they went to join the brawl without being able to objectively evaluate what had actually caused the conflict. 

As the video footage demonstrates, the husband participated in the brawl by using physical violence, but he has not been indicted and is involved in the trial only as an injured party. The state prosecutor is distinguishing between two phases of this conflict – she evidently considers the first phase between the husband and the juvenile to be a brawl which does not necessarily require criminal prosecution, as each participant was equally involved in attacking the other.

The second part of the conflict, however, involves the wife, who had at first repeatedly done her best to pull her husband away and to convince him not to fight, but evidently her intervention in the conflict sparked a violent reaction from the others involved (who had also initially wanted to prevent the brawl from escalating). Her husband did not prevent her from being attacked.

It was not until the father of one of the defendants intervened – in his pajamas, because at the time the conflict arose he was already in bed – that the entire brawl immediately ended, before the police patrol ever made it there. The entire case, therefore, is not as clear as it might seem from the reporting of the statewide media.

What about this case remains dubious, and what might be the subject of an eventual appeal? The court is now deciding whether it considers the causing of grave harms to be proven.

The court may take into consideration the standpoint of the defense, which is arguing that when the psychologist produced his evaluation, he was only able to base it on the victims’ version of the story, not on any of the other evidence. Did the husband contribute to escalating the conflict by not listening to his wife’s repeated calls for him not to fight?

Did the adult defendants even commit assault, or were they just participating in a brawl in which the wronged party can be shown to have also actively participated? Must a conflict in which members of one ethnicity are involved on one side and members of another ethnicity on the other necessarily always be considered racist?

In such cases the court usually takes into consideration the defendants’ pasts and the verbal statements made by those involved at the time. The court here, however, has no audio recording of the conflict and must rely on the credibility of the witnesses, who are simply making competing claims.

I do not want to be misunderstood here – in my view, the behavior of the defendants is contemptible, criminal, and hard to understand, but they have also since attempted to correct it. The defendants have apologized to the victims, both in person and publicly, and some defendants have, of their own initiative, paid a certain amount of money to the victims, both as financial compensation and as a gesture of good will; moreover, during the recent floods in Duchcov they helped clean up the mess and they have not broken the law since this incident – but will all of that be enough when the societal demand in this case is so clear? 

Why am I emphasizing this? Because it could easily (or with great difficulty, as the case may be) happen that some of the defendants receive only suspended sentences.

In my view, such a verdict should not (or better said, must not) spark another completely useless wave of violent, anti-Romani marches in this country. Under the rule of law the right to judge and punish belongs only to the court, not to a savage mob on the streets of our towns, and under no circumstances should people, including children, be punished who demonstrably have absolutely nothing to do with the case in question.