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Czech Police: Only one Romani person involved in new incident in Duchcov

06 June 2013
5 minute read

News servers iDNES.cz and TÝDEN.CZ report that in the Czech town of Duchcov a mood of enmity still prevails between the majority-society population and Romani residents. Tensions were not ameliorated by a recent public meeting convened by Mayor Jitka Bártová.

Together with local police, the mayor tried to put to rest the rumor of a new assault in the town. The rumor alleged that five Romani people had brutally beaten a 12-year-old non-Romani boy with sticks. The mendacious information was spread through social networking sites and then reported as if it were fact by the Mediafax press agency. The mayor eventually had to disperse the tense public gathering to keep it from getting out of hand.

Mayor and police director refute rumors

About 140 people gathered in the town’s cultural center. Seats were occupied by 100 ethnic Czechs while 40 Romani people stood along the walls. Even though the Romani residents had nothing to do with the recent incidents in the town and condemned them, they were verbally assaulted during the debate by the ethnic Czech members of the public. Several arguments broke out between the two groups.

People came to the meeting under the impression that Romani people had "brutally assaulted" a 12-year-old non-Romani boy. According to the rumors making the rounds online, the boy had allegedly been seriously injured and taken to hospital. 

That version of events turned out to have been nothing but a rumor which the Mediafax agency had been the first to publish as if it were a fact. "This was a conflict between children. The group involved included one Romani person and four ‘non-Roma’," Petr Sytař, director of the Teplice Police, stated unequivocally.

Mayor Jitka Bártová convened the meeting to explain the truth of several rumors spreading through the town. "People are talking about assaults here, about someone being stabbed. It has been said that a boy was attacked and is now in intensive care. Nothing of the sort is true. This was an ordinary children’s fight. Normally the child who started it should just have been spanked by his own parents and none of this should have been addressed through the media," Bártová told TÝDEN.CZ.

The mayor does not deny that the prevailing mood in the town is not good, but said that "it is positive that both groups still want to resolve this situation. They came to the meeting and asked questions."

An emotional debate

"Most of the debate revolved around the assault that did take place in the early morning hours of 18 May, when some Romani people brutally attacked a non-Romani married couple going home from a discotheque," news server iDNES.cz reported. At the meeting, both the ethnic Czech and the Romani residents agreed that several recent crimes have probably been committed by newcomers to the town. 

People reproached the mayor for allowing the newcomers to become local residents. The mayor responded that the municipality has absolutely no powers to ban anyone from taking up residency there.

The "white" Czechs at the meeting complained that the police operate with a double standard. They claimed police have not charged the person who initiated the 18 May conflict with racism even though the attacker himself has reportedly confessed to having shouted at the couple that they were "fucking gadje". Someone shouted from the audience, "They [the Roma] act with impunity!" 

A young Romani woman asked to speak and said she would have to leave early because her child was at home alone. Someone from the crowd shouted insultingly at her, "He has 15 brothers, they’ll keep an eye on him."

"We go to work, make the money for their welfare, and this is how they behave?" asked another "white" Czech. "Give us jobs then," a Romani woman responded. "Go sweep the streets," someone else from the crowd answered.

According to iDNES.cz, however, the debate was also meaningful at some points. For example, people asked how it was possible that the 16-year-old assailant had gotten drunk and demanded that municipal police control the sale of alcohol to juveniles in the town. 

"Emotions rose during the meeting several times to such an extent that there was the risk someone would get out of hand," iDNES.cz reports. The mayor ended the meeting after it had been underway for almost two hours.

"This has gotten out of hand, thank you all for coming," the mayor said when closing the gathering. Reportedly another public meeting will be scheduled in the future.

Mayor criticizes Agency for Social Inclusion

In an interview for TÝDEN.CZ, the mayor criticized the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion. "The Agency was here for only a very short time. They submitted their proposal for resolving the situation to us. We didn’t adopt it, we just noted its existence. The Agency got offended and stopped its collaboration with us," Bártová said.

"When the Agency was working here, horrible gossip was being whispered around town. Some people were saying I was a gypsy aunt because they heard the Romani children call me ‘Auntie’. Other people were calling me a fascist," the mayor told TÝDEN.CZ.

The head of the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion, Martin Šimáček, told TÝDEN.CZ that the mayor’s words about the Agency not working were meant to serve as her alibi and did not surprise him. "Unfortunately our opinions differed," he explained.

The Agency did work in Duchcov and says its collaboration with local government ended because it could not reach an agreement with the town leadership on how to proceed. "We disagreed with the massive privatization of the housing stock in Duchcov, which was heading right for the area where impoverished Romani people live there. We warned them that rents would go up. Today the rents are three times higher there than they were when the privatization began," he explained to TÝDEN.CZ. The Agency also asked that gambling rooms be closed and that drop-in centers for youth be introduced to the town.   

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