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Czech organizations call on police president to reject regional director's minimizing of racist incident

04 July 2013
4 minute read

A total of 28 organizations and individuals have called on Czech Police President Martin Červíček to clearly distance himself from and reject the statement made by South Bohemian Regional Police Director Radomír Heřman at a press conference on 1 July in České Budějovice in which he defended the racists who recently chanted "black swine" on the main square there. Heřman claimed that phrase referred to police officers, not to Romani people. 

The organizations are also calling on Červíček to have the Czech Police adopt measures at the strategic level to prevent violent demonstrations from the outset as well as the material and non-material damage they do. The open letter is published by news server Romea.cz in full translation below:

Open letter to Czech Police President Martin Červíček

The Honorable Mr Colonel Mgr. Martin Červíček
Police President
Police Presidium of the Czech Republic
Strojnická 27
170 89 Praha 7

Prague, 3 July 2013

Dear Mr Police President:

We are writing to request an unequivocal statement from you on the matter of the violent demonstration by the ultra-right and its supporters on 29 June 2013 in České Budějovice. The nature of that gathering transformed over time into one that could no longer be protected by the Law on Assembly. Its purpose had been clear from the start:  To provoke violence and spark inter-ethnic conflict. It was also not the first assembly of that kind to ever take place here. We believe it would be appropriate for the Czech Police to adopt measures at a strategic level to prevent violent demonstrations from the outset as well as the material and non-material damage that they do. Irrespective of their nationality, all residents of the Máj housing estate have now suffered harm to their coexistence that will be difficult to heal going forward. That would not have happened had the intervention against the violence been performed in time.

We do not want this criticism of the work of the Czech Police to be hollow or superficial. However, we do request that the specific police officials who made it possible for an impassioned mob chanting racist, violent slogans to leave the closed space of Přemysl Otakar II Square and march on a housing estate almost five kilometers away, where they subsequently committed violence against people and property, to be held unequivocally accountable for that performance. In such a situation we can only appreciate the work of those specific police officers who then actively prevented the radicalized individuals from continuing the violence. Many of those officers were injured.

We also protest against and demand a correction to the recent declaration by South Bohemian Regional Police Director Radomír Heřman, who unacceptably minimized manifestations of racism when he said that the phrase "black swine", shouted in this context – which is undoubtedly a racist expression – was aimed at the riot police officers in their black uniforms, not against the Romani residents of České Budějovice (see his press conference of 1 July 2013). We believe the Czech Police as a whole does not back that position, especially in a situation where clarifying hate crimes is one of the state’s security priorities, as flows from its international obligations, among others. 

Such a declaration from the mouth of a highly-positioned police official, however, could lead to reasonable concern over whether the Czech Police are even capable of prosecuting, and willing to effectively prosecute, hate crime. Such a declaration might also weaken the belief of persons threatened with hate violence that they can address those threats through legal means and trust the justice system to resolve them.

We believe the statement by the South Bohemian Regional Police Director was an isolated excess. Given the high position he holds, however, the only way to heal the damage done by his statement would be to for you to issue a statement of correction that is of the same intensity.

Esteemed Mr Police President, we ask that you unequivocally condemn this minimization of crime motivated by prejudice and pledge to the public that the Police of the Czech Republic will strive to effectively prosecute hate crime. We also ask that no benevolence or tolerance be shown toward violent demonstrations inciting hatred and intolerance.

Thank you,

(In Czech alphabetical order)

Amnesty International Czech Republic
ARA ART, o.s
Statewide Association of Romani People in the Czech Republic (Celostátní asociace Romů v ČR)
Center for the Integration of Foreigners (Centrum pro integraci cizinců, o.s.)
Czech Helsinki Committee (Český helsinský výbor)
Czech Freedom Fighters’ Union – Tachov (Český svaz bojovníků za svobodu Tachov)
Forum Cz, o.s.
Cheiron T, o.p.s.
In IUSTITIA, o.s.
Crisis Committee of Young Roma (Krizový štáb mladých Romů)
Multicultural Center Prague (Multikulturní centrum Praha, o.s.)
Organization for Aid to Refugees (Organizace pro pomoc uprchlíkům, o.s.)
Open Society (Otevřená společnost, o.p.s.)
Prague Pride, o.s.
Romano jasnica, o.s.
ROMEA, o.s.
Romodrom, o.s.
Slovo 21
Equal Opportunities Party (Strana rovných příležitostí)
Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu)
Jana Časnochová, press spokesperson, Czech Freedom Fighters’ Union
Gabriela Havlůjová, chair of the municipal committee, Czech Freedom Fighters’ Union – Kladno

The following organizations joined the letter after it was sent:

Čačipen, o. s.
Konexe, o. s.
World without War and Violence (Svět bez válek a násilí, o.s.)
Wontanara, o.s.
SIMI
Romani Organized Minority (R.O.M. Rómska Organizovaná Menšina)

If you agree with this letter and want to join it, please write to romea@romea.cz.

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