Czech candidate shocked when online haters targeted her two-year-old

Nina Špitálníková, who recently ran for the Pirate Party during the elections to the European Parliament, became a target of hate speech during the campaign. Racist invective through social media was also targeted at her two-year-old son.

The candidate has decided to file a crime report over one of the threats. She was recently interviewed about the experience by news server iROZHLAS.cz, the online service of Czech Radio.

"In the beginning it was comments on social media, then text messages arrived saying that my 'nigger' child is the dregs of society and that I am disrupting the traditional white family. Or that my child probably is not Aryan. From my perspective these were purely racist attacks because my son is mulatto," said the Korean Studies graduate and production manager for the Cross Club in Prague.

Ahead of the elections, the candidate used her own social media profile to publish the "top 10" most hateful, worst comments and messages from the hundreds sent to her during the campaign. She said she was attempting to encourage people to vote by doing so.

Špitálníková believed a low turnout would mean that exactly those political groups that support such hateful and xenophobic attacks could gain the advantage. At the same time, she says she was pleased to receive positive messages and stimulating reactions to her revelation of the abuse.

Of course, she decided to also turn to the police over a message threatening physical assault against her and her son. "I have been discussing with the expert on extremism, Jan Charvát, that we will write this up in order to point out this racism targeting children. I will report one matter to police because it involved the threat of a physical attack. The message began with racist sentences, and then the threat was made that they would be waiting for my son and I and that they would stomp us to death. That can't be overlooked - even if the person wrote it drunk in a pub, nobody can be allowed to dare communicate that to another person," Špitálníková said.