Czech court to try Islamophobes who attacked Muslim couple in a park last year

News server iDNES.cz reports that prosecutors have indicted a man and woman whom detectives say made threats against a Muslim couple in Šanov Park in Teplice, Czech Republic last summer. At the same time, the Moravian-Silesian Regional Police have shelved the case of an article about the incident in which the author crudely insulted the Muslim community, the police who investigated the incident, and the police press spokesperson.

According to the police and the prosecutor, those indicted allegedly committed felony violence against a group and individuals under the second paragraph of the law defining that crime, which carries a possible sentence of between six months and three years in prison. The incident happened during an event organized by the Teplice branch of the "Bloc against Islamicization" group on the evening of the last Saturday in July 2018.

Those attending the event saw a Muslim woman with a baby carriage walking past them and called her vulgar names, after which her husband attempted to discuss their behavior with them. "The 40-year-old man who had verbally assaulted the woman is said to have pulled out a gas pistol, cocked it, and aimed it at the injured party's husband," Teplice Police spokesperson Daniel Vítek said.

"According to eyewitness testimony, the man then threatened to kill the Muslim woman's husband because of his religious faith," the spokesperson said. The suspect's 44-year-old wife has also been indicted for verbally assaulting and threatening the Muslim couple.

A few days later, the website vlasteneckenoviny.cz ("Patriotic News.cz") published an article with the headline: "String them up? What about that police brute who has charged a couple in Teplice for defending themselves against aggressive Muslim terrorists?" The byline on the article is somebody named "Ferdinand Pištora".

The author alleges in the piece that video footage is circulating on the Internet and being deleted by censors of something happening differently in Teplice than "what is claimed by the police brute who has, moreover, charged these victims of a terrorist verbal assault and let the Muslim aggressors flee the scene instead of deporting them from our country because those dirty dogs and unclean pigs have no business being here." Police have shelved the matter of the article.

"It has been decided to postpone that case, as it was not possible to discover facts justifying the opening of a prosecution against a specific individual," said Moravian-Silesian police spokesperson Gabriela Pokorná, without elaborating further. The publisher of the vlasteneckenoviny.cz website is headquartered in Ostrava, which is in the Moravian-Silesian Region.