Czech court conditionally suspends prosecution of man who threatened to kill Romani celebrity

Conditional suspension of the prosecution is how the trial ended of a man in his fifties from Ostrava, Czech Republic who made racist threats on the life of the Romani singer Radek Banga. The court suspended the prosecution for a probationary period of two years.
The man made threats through online social networks against Radek Banga, whose band is known in the music world as Gipsy.cz. Banga had expressed his vocal disagreement during the Czech Nightingale (Český slavík) popular music awards in November 2016 with an award being given to the Ortel band and its singer of the same name, whose material is known to be racist.
Dozens of Ortel fans reacted by sending Banga harsh threats and racial abuse through the Internet. The man from Ostrava who has now faced judgment wrote one such message.
"To call you a black swine would be flattery, you're just shitty filth. Gas would be too easy, I'd slit your throat ISIS-style!" was just part of his message.
During the investigation the man admitted he was the author of the comments and said he regretted them, telling the court he acted under the influence of emotion. "I wasn't thinking," the man said.
"When I was at the police station later and heard them read aloud the sentence I had written, I didn't believe it. I myself was horrified by what I had written," the man testified.
The defendant also sent a letter of apology to the singer. During the opening of the main hearing at the end of January, he delivered the CZK 5 000 [EUR 194] that Banga sought as compensation for moral damages to the singer's attorney in the courtroom, and testified that he had also donated CZK 8 000 [EUR 310] to an organization that aids crime victims.
According to Klára Kalibová of the In IUSTITIA organization, who is Banga's attorney, the court's decision in this case was incorrect. "In my opinion, the defendant does not actually regret this matter," she told news server Romea.cz.
"He did not apologize to the victim until just before the main hearing, i.e., more than a year and a half after he committed this act, and he only did so in a formal sense. He has not undertaken any basic reflection about his behavior," the attorney said.
The court, in her view, also did not take into consideration the decisions handed down by other courts in the Czech Republic against those who committed similar offenses. A total of 17 decisions associated with the scandal of people sending racist abuse and threats to Banga have been previously handed down.
In nine of those cases the perpetrators have been convicted, in five the behavior was considered a misdemeanor, and three cases have been shelved. The current case is the first to end with a conditional suspension.
"This demonstrates that 'local law' continues to apply in the Czech Republic," the attorney warned. "From the very beginning we pointed out that Radek Banga's scandal should be addressed by one court, not by different courts across the country."
"The court did reproach the defendant for his behavior, declared it a felony, and is giving him a second chance only in the form of probation," the attorney noted. The experience of the Banga scandal, according to her, demonstrates that it is necessary to initiate a debate about adapting legal regulations for the prosecution of felonies committed by more than one perpetrator against the same victim.
Don't miss:
- Czech court hears testimony from former secretary to ultranationalist party about his bigoted outburst
- Complaint against racist election campaign in Czech town heads to the European Court of Human Rights
- Czech Constitutional Court rejects complaint about hateful election campaigns, but agrees they were unethical
- Czech courts convict two people for racist online hate speech about newborn, three more are under investigation
- Czech Constitutional Court upholds requirement for supermarket chains to donate to food banks
- Czech Constitutional Court to review controversial local ordinance about sitting in public
- Czech Supreme Court to review verdict in shooting murder of Romani man in Chomutov
- Czech court finds author of death threats against human rights defenders committed a politically-motivated hate crime
- Czech Constitutional Court receives complaint about election campaign, proposals for "fertilization" of "gypsies" recur in local media discussion
- Czech court fines seven racists for approving of the murder of a Romani man, but one is appealing - for the publicity
- Czech lower courts consider online comment calling for asylum-seekers to be set on fire a misdemeanor, Supreme Court to rule now
- Czech Constitutional Court president: Ethnic and national self-centeredness and xenophobia are a threat to Europe
- Czech courts give suspended sentence to man who fired warning shots at Romani children
- A quarter of a century ago, 18 racists hounded a Romani man to death; the Czech courts convicted just three
- Czech court hears accused assailants of African man deny they racially abused him in any way
Related articles:
- Czech fan of ultra-nationalist party gets suspended sentence for wearing Nazi symbols to demonstration
- Romani rapper Alex Dzurko's new video criticizes "Facebook warriors" and racists, laments social divisions
- Gipsy.cz's new video calls on adults and children to put down their phones and go outside together
- Slovakia: Ultra-right calls for "asocials" to be sent to labor camps, police investigating
- Thirty years of freedom: Roma in the Czech Republic wanted totalitarianism to end, value the chance to do business, lament antigypsyism
- Czech Regional Court returns online hate speech case about death threats against first-graders to lower court, more evidence needed
- Michal Mižigár: What democracy brought us Romani people in the Czech Republic in the 1990s
- Lifeguard gets state honors from Czech President for injuries sustained in brawl that sparked ultra-right anti-Romani demonstration
- Pavel Botoš: Who will stop the use of terms like "cigoši" in the Czech Republic?
- Iveta Bílková: Czech society should not tolerate words like "Cigán", "Cigoši", etc.
- Roma are most frequently targeted by hatred on the Czech Internet, experts say the law applies online too
- Patrik Banga: Social media is depriving us of context and driving us all crazy
Tags:
Gipsy.cz, Racism, Trial, ultra-rightHEADLINE NEWS
