Czech Republic: Media blow yet another incident of interethnic violence out of proportion

According to reports by some Czech media outlets and the responses to them in online discussions, it might seem as if multiple murders had just been committed in the Krásné Březno quarter of Ústí nad Labem. However, according to reporting by TV Nova (which is otherwise normally known for its sensationalism) the incident at issue was actually a blow to the head with some sort of object, causing an injury that was treated with one stitch. 

We are discussing one of the anti-Romani reports that have been swarming online recently in such numbers that it raises the question of whether this all isn’t a targeted anti-Roma crusade. All of these reports are accompanied by the most distasteful kind of racist hatred, as the language of extremists is taken up by ordinary people. News server Romea.cz has also reported elsewhere (http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/analysis-how-to-produce-hate-or-roma-the-czech-floods-and-the-ymca) about the anti-Roma rumors now circulating online in the aftermath of the recent floods here.

Out of proportion

Anti-Romani reports do not necessarily have to be completely invented, even though that too has happened many times. All that really has to happen is for an actual event to be blown so out of proportion that it no longer corresponds to reality. 

That is the example of this most recent case from Krásné Březno. Every act of violence must be condemned, including the one this scandal involves. However, it must be stated clearly that no one knows exactly what occurred in this incident. 

Over time the 16-year-old victim himself has changed his story. It is not known how many versions of the case have been written up, but one of the first versions he posted to Facebook was as follows:

"On the bus he pushed me and punched me in the stomach, so I worked him over a bit. He could barely make it to the back of the bus… When I got off he did too, but I didn’t notice him until he ran into me, so I started up too and when he saw it wasn’t going to end well for him, he pulled out something sharp and banged me with it about 10 times in the back and head, I got one stitch and I had to pay CZK 30…"   

The youth later erased this version. His "official" version on Facebook is now worded as follows:

"On the bus a Rom whose name is already known to the police pushed me, shouted ‘What are you looking at?’ and punched me in the stomach just because I was watching while he tried to punch a worn-out ticket about 10 more times. I used a light counter-attack in response. When I got off the bus, he did too, but I didn’t notice him until he punched me, and I was so upset that I don’t remember where. I started pushing the Rom back towards the bus and then I fled. After I started running away, he pulled out some sort of blunt metal object from his pocket and hit me from behind on the back and head. Then he fled and I somehow made it across the street to the other sidewalk, where I lay on the ground and waited to see if the Lord would have mercy on me. I’m afraid I’ve been infected with hepatitis C because this known perpetrator has it." 

The 16-year old victim had to change his original account of 10 blows with a sharp object to (unnumbered) blows with a blunt object so his testimony to police would correspond with reality. The victim does not mention how he knows that the man who allegedly assaulted him is infected with hepatitis, or how he found out about it in such a brief time after the attack. 

The tabloid Blesk

The tabloid daily Blesk described this as a stabbing case in its online edition and in its first print edition. In its second effort at covering the story it made use of the alleged victim’s second "official" version.

What is interesting is that the editors also added the following information to their second piece:  "According to information received by Blesk, the assailant himself called the police. His alleged version of the story is different. He puts the blame on Dušan, claiming he provoked the conflict."

It is too bad that the language of the Blesk report casts doubt on the Romani man’s testimony while casting none on that of the 16-year-old involved. Blesk assumes it knows what happened, taking the side of one party to the conflict at a phase where all we have are competing claims and we do not know who is telling the truth. 

Aha online

The tabloid Aha inflated the importance of this incident to about the size of the Hindenburg. Its headline reporting on the case reads:  "Rom stabbed Dušan (age 16) from behind in the head!"

The article continues as follows:  "He noticed a young Rom on the trolleybus in Ústí nad Labem punching an already-used ticket. Dušan S. (age 16) unfortunately didn’t lift his gaze and kept watching the fraudster. It almost cost him his life!"

Deník.cz

News server Deník.cz published its report on the incident under the headline "Man doesn’t like youth watching him, stabs him in the head". The information that the youth was allegedly stabbed in the head with a knife was probably issued by the alleged victim in one of his first versions of what happened, where he passes himself off as a hero. It is not known whom Deník.cz is citing because the daily doesn’t bother to provide sources for its quotes or any other evidence for its assertions.

The sister of the alleged assault victim posted an open comment about the attack being one of stabbing to the infamously racist Facebook page entitled "Ústí nad Labem". While she does not mention a knife, she also blows the entire incident out of proportion, claiming that her brother’s life was saved by the driver stopping the trolleybus.

Deník.cz writes up the case as if the reporter had been an eyewitness to it:  " ‘What are you looking at?’ the inadaptable man shouted at the youth who was watching him try to punch the crumpled ticket he had taken from his pocket. That is how Dušan S. described to Deník the start of the incident that would leave him the victim of a brutal assault, after which he ended up in hospital with a bloody knife wound."

Deník.cz then goes on to give a third version of what happened, one that contradicts the previous versions:  " ‘I was taking the trolleybus with my friends back to Krásné Březno from the town center. At the Vojanov stop, a swarthy man about 25 years old got on and was having trouble punching his ticket. The driver didn’t respond to his behavior, just waited for him to finish. When we looked over to see how much longer we would be standing there, he shouted at me ‘What are you looking at?’ I kept talking to my friends and didn’t pay any more attention to him. After he walked past the driver, he pushed me and then punched me in the stomach. I started defending myself,’ the victim describes. Other passengers then grabbed the aggressor and dragged him to the back of the trolleybus. At the next stop, by the Drivers’ Education place, Dušan S. exited the trolleybus. ‘He got off too. He jumped me from behind and pulled my backpack off. I started defending myself. When he sensed that I was overcoming him, he suddenly pulled out something like a key or a knife. He started stabbing me with it. He also threatened things like ‘I’ll cut you up’, stuff like that,’ Dušan S. said."

In this version, the alleged assailant first pulls off the alleged victim’s backpack and the "hero" of the case defends himself before he is "stabbed with a knife". As if that weren’t enough, Deník.cz also reports the generalizing claims of the victim’s mother, just to make it clear that all Romani people, not just a single "aggressor", are evil:

"The mother of the victim drew the Ústecký deník’s attention to this case. ‘It would be good to inform the public about what is going on in our town. This is unreal – how are we supposed to protect ourselves? I live at the Mojžíř housing estate and you should be documenting how the inadaptables here behave. They are not interested in doing anything, they just shout all night long at the pub and when I go to work in the morning, I’m afraid to walk to the bus stop,’ Jana S. said." 

Deník.cz also has not bothered to find out whether the alleged assailant called the police himself or whether police detained him on their own. What is his version of what happened?

TV Prima

TV Prima repeated everything from all of these versions that could be considered the worst against the Roma, adding their own colorful description of the case. Their reporter said it was just a matter of luck that the assaulted youth hadn’t ended up in a wheelchair and described the incident as one at the level of murder.  

"In Ústí nad Labem a brutal assault by an aggressor ended with a laceration to the head of 16-year-old Dušan…" begins the Prima report. The reporter naturally could not have known (and still does not know) which version is the truth, that of the 16-year-old youth or that of the Romani man involved. Prima just simply accommodated the online mob calling at the time and since for revenge in the form of the genocide of all Roma, their internment into concentration camps, or at least their deportation from the Czech Republic. 

TV Nova

TV Nova took a different approach to the case. This time around it did its best to report objectively:

"Unlike what is being said on social networking sites about this having been an attack with a knife, or even a case of stabbing someone in the head, that is not what happened. The aggressor ‘only’ hit 16-year old Dušan once from behind on the head with some sort of blunt object. The injury is not as serious as it would obviously have been after a knife assault. The boy’s small laceration was sewn up in hospital with a single stitch. He had no other injuries… For the time being, Tn.cz only has the version of the victim available as he described it to police officers. It cannot be ruled out that the police investigation might reach other conclusions," TV Nova wrote on its internet page Tn.cz.

TV Nova also reported that the alleged aggressor was "dragged to another part of the trolleybus by people who knew him." In other words, other Romani people reportedly prevented him from getting into further conflict with the youth. 

Nova describes yet a fourth version of this case. This story is different from all the previous ones:

"Dušan was talking with some girls on the trolleybus when another group of passengers got on at a certain stop. One of them did his best to push a crumpled ticket into the machine but was not having any luck. Dušan says he watched this with a smile. The man with the ticket, however, did not share his good mood. With the words ‘What are you looking at?’ he pushed Dušan and punched him below the ribs. A brief verbal clash evidently followed, during which Dušan says the other passengers stood up for him. The aggressor was dragged to another part of the trolleybus by people who knew him… The youth said good-bye to his girlfriend and her friends and got off at the stop in Krásné Březno. At that moment he was assaulted from behind by the man from the trolleybus. Dušan was struck in the head with some sort of blunt object. He turned around and when he saw he was being followed by his assailant from the bus, he ran across the road to the other side. He realized he was bleeding and lay down on the ground, where other eyewitnesses helped him. He later sought treatment in a hospital. An X-ray did not find any serious injuries and a doctor sewed up the small laceration on his head with a single stitch. TV Nova has one more unconfirmed piece of information, namely, that the alleged aggressor called the police himself, saying he understood he was evidently going to have problems but that his side of the story is different. For the time being it is unclear whether the youth provoked the man to attack or not, or how much he contributed to the escalation of the incident. We will inform you of further developments in this case." 

Hatchet jobs and hyenas

TV Nova deserves all the honors this time for not exploiting this case for populist point-scoring with its viewers, doing its best to look at this entire matter objectively, and including all the available information in its reporting. What Aha, Blesk, Deník.cz and mainly TV Prima did has nothing in common with objectivity. In their cases this is not about journalism, but about hatchet jobs. The hyena-like behavior of journalists evidently knows no limits. 

This all seems like some sort of sci-fi novel in which a country, with the aid of its all-knowing, nit-witted, racist journalists and media producers, is dragged into the sewer by sharply rising racist provocations accompanied by lies and half-truths about Romani people. If we don’t do something about it soon, this science fiction could quickly become reality.