Con artist announces yet another demonstration in Varnsdorf this Saturday

Yet another anti-Romani demonstration is expected to erupt in Varnsdorf this Saturday. The town reportedly cannot ban the march on a residential hotel occupied primarily by Romani tenants because the event has been properly announced, according to Romana Macová, spokesperson for the Varnsdorf town council. More than 300 people have confirmed their participation in Saturday’s event through the Facebook social networking site. The town itself has convened a public discussion that same morning in the local cinema.

The Varnsdorf town hall has confirmed to the Czech Press Agency that the march has been properly announced, which means it can’t be banned. Lukáš Kohout, the convener of this demonstration and previous ones in Varnsdorf, is an infamous figure in the Czech Republic, a man with a criminal record for having posed as an assistant to a Czech MP in order to scam free air travel worldwide.

Kohout originally did not want to announce Saturday’s march to the town hall and told journalists on Monday that it would be a religious gathering. According to the law on assembly, such gatherings are not obligated to announce themselves to authorities beforehand. He appears to have changed his mind and announced it as the law requires.

“Police are aware of the planned march and will follow it. They will intervene should illegal behavior be committed,” Regional Police Spokesperson Šárka Poláčková told the Czech Press Agency.

Last weekend a march by the Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) in the town of Nový Bor took place without any serious problems developing. However, when the DSSS held a rally in Varnsdorf that same day, people set off in the direction of the residential hotels on an unannounced march. Police prevented them from reaching the residential hotel by using teargas and water cannon against aggressive protesters throwing bottles and rocks at them. Riot police used force against the crowd after they failed to obey a police order to disperse.

“Even though the citizens of Varnsdorf wanted to express their dissatisfaction with the current situation in good faith, they found themselves clashing with the law when they participated in the march through the town, which was directed by experienced extremists and provocateurs who were present and used the citizens of Varnsdorf as human shields,” the Varsdorf town hall said in a statement issued about last Saturday’s protests.

The protests against rising crime in the Šluknov foothills began after an attack committed in August by a group of 20 allegedly Romani people against a smaller group of non-Romani Rumburk residents. The town managed to calm the situation in Rumburk after only one protest march, but Varnsdorf has experienced protests week after week, for three weekends in a row, and more are planned.

The atmosphere between members of the majority and the Romani residents is very tense, according to the Varnsdorf town leadership. Each new incident of mugging or shoplifting in the town incites the locals more and more. During last Friday’s protest, locals shouted “Where were you yesterday?” at police officers, referring to reports that a woman had been robbed of her mobile telephone near her car the previous day. Some locals blame Romani tenants of the Sport residential hotel for the incident because the theft happened in the same neighborhood.

On Monday, a 21-year-old man even went so far as to falsely report a mugging to police, claiming that five other men had blocked his way in the evening and demanded cigarettes. Allegedly concerned for his life, he claimed to have given them everything he had on him.

“During the course of the police investigation it was determined that the 21-year-old had made up in the entire incident. The case will therefore be shelved,” Petra Trypesová, spokesperson for the Děčín Police, said in a press release.