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News server Romea.cz. Everything about Roma in one place

Czech Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg backs municipal TOP 09 leader Jezerský

22 October 2012
4 minute read

The chair of the TOP 09 party, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, is standing by Jiří Jezerský, the party’s leading candidate for the autumn municipal elections in the “Mariánské hory and Hulváky” district of Ostrava. Civil society activists object to Jezerský’s candidacy because of harsh comments he made about Roma several years ago. Schwarzenberg gave the following quote to news server Romea.cz: “If the words that Mr Jezerský supposedly said four years ago were confirmed, they would have to be addressed. After thoroughly studying the file of the trial that took place two years ago in this matter, he must be considered innocent.”

The trial, however, proved that Jezerský really did say the words concerned – although when explaining its judgment, the court described the incident as one of hyperbole. Schwarzenberg has thus added his voice in support of the party’s stance on this issue as it was presented last week by TOP 09 spokesperson Jan Jakob: TOP 09 knows about Jezerský’s statements, but fully supports him nonetheless.

Ostrava activist Kumar Vishwanathan, who drew the attention of the media to Jezerský’s candidacy, is disappointed by the stance of the TOP 09 chair. “In this case it is not important whether Mr Jezerský is innocent before the law – rather, it is a question of good morals. People often overlook this and excuse it by discussing only whether the law has been upheld, but Jezerský has the promotion of tensions between ethnic groups and people on his conscience. A prestigious politician such as Karel Schwarzenberg should realize that Jiří Jezerský has not been acquitted of liability in the moral sense. It is immoral for a politician who is a member of a civilized party to say he will go shoot other people, irrespective of what he meant. This is a bad image for TOP 09,” said Vishwanathan.

“I am finding it harder and harder to understand the character of our political leaders. In my opinion, the esteemed Prince Schwarzenberg did not need to make that statement,” Čeněk Růžička, chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust, told news server Romea.cz. Ladislav Bílý of the Roma Civic Association in Karlovy Vary told Romea.cz: “I do not understand how a politician like Mr Schwarzenberg can stand by such a xenophobe.”

Romea.cz was unable to ask Karel Schwarzenberg any follow-up questions. The TOP 09 chair is said to be at the spa and his statement was delivered to Romea.cz in an e-mail from TOP 09 spokesperson Jan Jakob after almost one week of asking in vain for a response. Jakob is very unwilling to communicate. He frequently did not answer the telephone, had his office deny he was there, and did not respond to SMS messages. After some time he responded to an e-mail request, but in order to avoid answering our question, he denied the promise made in an initial e-mail to get a statement for us from the TOP 09 chair. Karel Schwarzeberg stated in an interview for ParlamentníListy.cz last week that he would make a statement Monday after studying materials related to the issue.

Jiří Jezerský made his anti-Roma statements at a public meeting of the municipal housing department on 15 August 2006 at which complaints regarding Roma moving into the district from other parts of Ostrava were being discussed. The mayor of the district, Czech Senator Liana Janáčková (not an ODS party member, but affiliated with their club in the Czech Senate), said at the time: “I understand this is not fair to you all, but I really do not have anywhere else to put these Gypsies, I’d just need some dynamite to blow them all up with… I do not agree with any kind of integration of these Gypsies around the district, unfortunately, I am a racist. We picked [the] Bedřiška [settlement] so that is where they will be, with a high fence, an electric one, why not, it’s all the same to me… I’ll shout that out to the whole world, no problem.” The Senate refused to strip Janáčková of her immunity (primarily the ODS senators refused) so she was never investigated and can never be prosecuted for these remarks.

Her colleague (and Vice-Mayor at the time) Jiří Jezerský added this to Janáčková’s remarks: “Give me a gun license and a permit to shoot and I’ll go do it.” A legally obtained audio recording of the publicly accessible meeting of this department of the municipal district of “Mariánské hory and Hulváky” was first released by news server Romea.cz. Jezerský is now defending himself by saying the very same Roma whom he wanted to shoot are now his fans and co-workers.

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