Czech Police charge five people over Saturday's anti-Roma march

The Czech Police have charged five people in connection with Saturday's anti-Roma march in Varnsdorf. Three are charged with assaulting a police officer and two with promoting a banned movement because they were wearing banned symbols on their clothing. Jarmila Hrubešová, spokesperson for the Ústí Regional Police directorate, told the Czech Press Agency today that two of the assailants face up to six years in prison for assault with a weapon.

One of those charged, a 35-year-old ethnic Czech from Hradec Králové, shot at police officers twice with a gas-fired pistol at a highway checkpoint near Dolní Podluží. No one was injured. Detectives have filed the same charges against a 25-year old man who threw rocks at police officers and at their cars in Varnsdorf; he is also being charged with vandalism. A 47-year-old woman also faces four years in prison for assaulting an official.

The other two men, aged 31 and 33, were charged with promoting banned movements and face up to three years in prison. "They were wearing t-shirts about banned topics," Hrubešová told the Czech Press Agency. Another two similar charges may be filed regarding the march in Nový Bor.

The ultra-nationalist Workers' Social Justice Party convened demonstrations in three North Bohemian towns on Saturday 10 September. At the second of those events, in Varnsdorf, the demonstration transformed into an unannounced march on residential hotels with Romani tenants. When thwarted, demonstrators threw bottles and rocks at police, who used stun grenades, teargas and water cannon to disperse the mob. Six people were injured, three of them police officers, and 37 people were detained at police stations.