Czech Police detain Romea.cz correspondents for no reason, complaint is being filed

Correspondents with news server Romea.cz were briefly detained by police today for no reason. Those detained included journalist Patrik Banga, also a correspondent for news server iDNES.cz. Police gave no explanation for their actions. The ROMEA civic association, which runs news server Romea.cz, is filing a complaint against this scandalous behavior.

"I was photographing as police arrested someone during their maneuvers today. They were really wrestling with him. Suddenly they ran over to me. Two police officers grabbed me and dragged me away, saying I wasn't allowed to photograph," Banga said in an interview for news server iDNES.cz. "There were dozens of journalists there, but the police officers intervened only against the three of us - against the three Romani journalists," he explained to news server Romea.cz. "I explained to them that I was doing my job and that they were keeping me from it. I showed them my press pass. Despite that, they dragged me about 500 meters away and said I had been photographing people's faces there. Then they checked my id," Banga said.

The officers were not able to explain to our correspondents why they had been detained and said the commander of the intervention would give them an explanation. "I kept asking for an explanation, so they said the commander of the intervention would give me one. Then they disappeared," Banga said. "There were three Romani journalists there. They dragged all three of us away and treated us very roughly. Then they let us go without a word of explanation. They may have let us go because other journalists ran over to us, calling me by name because we know one another," Bang told news server iDNES.cz.

"We are filing a complaint against the police officers' behavior. We have the identification numbers of those who intervened so roughly against our colleagues for no reason," Zdeněk Ryšavý, director of the ROMEA civic association, told news server Romea.cz.