Czech Republic: Police harass local Roma in Litvínov, young woman victim of police brutality
The Janov housing estate in Litvínov primarily became known to the rest of the country in 2008. In the autumn of that year, right-wing extremists went on a series of sprees of violence and attempted pogroms against local Romani residents there while some of the residents of Czech nationality applauded them. (For background information, please see http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czechrep-sees-toughest-clash-of-police-far-rightists-since-2000)
Zero tolerance
No one takes any interest in Janov today, even though things are going on there that, by all accounts, are a result of that earlier unrest and the dissatisfaction of locals with inter-ethnic coexistence. On the basis of a municipal decision, a "zero tolerance" action has been permanently underway there which aims to improve coexistence.
"Zero tolerance" originally meant that anyone who violated a particular municipal ordinance would be fined. Now, however, it seems the program is being used for hard-core harassment and intimidation of local Romani residents, forcing them to leave the public areas of the housing estate and stay inside.
This is being done with the aid of police beatings, as we document below. In other words, the Romani residents of Janov have no freedom of movement.
"Zero tolerance" is actually deteriorating coexistence at the housing estate, as it is turning Romani residents into second-class citizens. Because of the actions of municipal police officers, Romani residents’ frustration and justified feeling of injustice is rising.
Romani residents are being fined and asked to pay on the spot for, among other things, the following "derelictions":
Sitting on the staircases between floors inside a building
Sitting on the steps leading from the sidewalk to a building
Sitting on curbs or any other structural element
Sitting on their own chairs or other objects outside
Sitting on a gutter (one woman was fined CZK 500 for this)
Standing in a group together on the sidewalk (or footpath)
Walking on a lawn (here the police are reportedly inconsistent, some allow this, others don’t)
Playing recorded music outside (for example, from a car)
Any performance of music outside
Speaking loudly outside (for all these "noise" matters, the police have fined people without ever measuring the alleged violations of public health standards).
In the particular part of Janov where this is happening, there are only two benches and no playground. "They want us to disappear from the streets and not be seen. The adults can take it, but the children cannot be shut up at home all day," one local mother told news server Romea.cz.
Fines only for Romani residents
Local police, when upholding the ordinance instituting these fines, very often border on breaking the law themselves. "They give fines only to us," the local Romani residents claim.
During a recent visit to Janov, I was able to see this with my own eyes. "White" residents were calmly sitting on the curb, their children were running around on the lawn, and local police walked past them without even noticing. Romani residents are fined several times a day for the very same behavior.
This has been confirmed by field social worker Ondřej Kocur of the Shared Life (Společný život) association, which helps people not only at Janov, but all over Litvínov and in the nearby village of Lom. "I work in Litvínov and the places covered by Ordinance No. 6/2010," Kocur told me. "I usually see [non-Romani] people sitting on ‘structural elements’ or lying on the lawn sunbathing. I have never noticed the local police fining them."
Complaints to the municipal police
According to Kocur and the testimony of many Romani residents, the local police film people with a video camera and photograph them, even at times when they are not documenting an alleged violation of the ordinance, without asking people whether they can do so. When they are asked to stop, the police either make the excuse that they are not filming or photographing, or they tell people to "shut up" and mind their own business.
Romani residents complain to Kocur about the behavior of local police very frequently. "I wanted to let Commander Urban of the Municipal Police know about my observations in the field at one of the regular meetings held between local nonprofit organizations and town representatives. I never received a response to that specific item from him or anyone else. The head of the social services department was there as well. I’m losing interest in meetings like those – if we’re just going to tell each other everything’s good, then I’m not going," Kocur told news server Romea.cz. He went on to say that he is not against the municipal police patrolling Janov, quite the opposite, but "the police must proceed according to the law and must be fair, which means there can’t be double standards."
Harassment and law-breaking by municipal police
The municipal police greet Romani residents using the familiar, informal form of address in the Czech language, which is insulting, and treat them with scorn, sometimes using curses and vulgar expressions. They also shout at Romani people and shove them around relatively often. It is no exaggeration to say that some of the municipal police officers are behaving as if they were guards in a labor camp during the so-called Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938-1939).
"They treat us like animals," one Romani resident said, expressing the general feeling of his neighbors. The behavior takes place in the area centered around Albrechtická and Třebušická Streets. The first row of prefabricated apartment buildings there is listed on the orientation sign as Block D2 and the second row is listed as Block D3.
Some local police, according to many testimonies, simply invent violations of the ordinance so they can burn the Roma with fines. At other times they issue fines no matter the ultimate cost, which is perhaps the best evidence of their desire to harass Romani residents.
I personally witnessed police fining a Romani two-year-old – or to be precise, his mother. She had been tending to an infant in a pram for a few seconds while her two-year-old sat on the steps leading into the building.
The toddler sat on the steps for 30 seconds. Police arrived and the mother had to pay CZK 200.
According to several testimonies, the police violate laws and regulations themselves. For example, on one narrow pathway (really a footpath, because classic sidewalks do not exist in this part of Janov) police are said to ride their motorcycles at high speeds (see the photograph above).
The Romani residents we reached out to about these allegations estimate that the motorcycles have driven through there several times at speeds of more than 100 km per hour, without turning on their lights or sirens. Pedestrians understandably use the walkway, including mothers with their prams. "If I hadn’t gotten out of the way, he would have hit me and my pram," one Romani mother told news server Romea.cz.
Police have also had no compunction about entering Romani people’s apartments a few times without their permission and without a warrant to perform a house search. They also basically never give Romani citizens who have been fined the obligatory information that they if they disagree with the fine they can contest it – on the contrary, they force them to sign for the fines without discussion.
An example of police intimidation
A 33-year-old Romani woman described to me just one of many examples of police intimidation. The incident she described reportedly took place in Janov roughly a year ago.
The woman went into a shop where two local police were also paying for some purchases. They left the store. She had been standing in line right behind them, so she left a moment after they did with her cigarettes and pizza.
The officers were waiting for her and demanded to see her identification for no legal reason at all. Local and state police officers are only allowed to ask citizens for identification under circumstances prescribed by law, and citizens of the Czech Republic are not required to carry their id cards on them.
"I told them I didn’t have my id with me," she said, "but that I live a few meters away and I would be glad to show it to them if they would come with me. They said no, I had to immediately get into their car. I told them I wasn’t going anywhere with them and offered once again for them to accompany me to my home. At that moment my boyfriend arrived and I asked him to go get my id, so he went home for it. Then one of the policemen started to shout at me like dictator, saying I had to get in the car immediately, and he was purple with rage. I was afraid of him. I started to get in the car and he started yelling ‘Sit down right now’. He grabbed my arm very painfully and pushed me. My head was hurt banging into the body of the car because of that."
The young woman was suddenly alone with the two officers in the car, one of whom sat with her in the back seat. The driver circled the housing estate as they asked her various questions and treated her very aggressively.
"For example, they asked me whether I’m from here," she related. "I said yes. Then they asked if I’m from Slovakia, and one started shouting at me: ‘What are you doing here, go back to Slovakia!’ I answered, ‘Why should I go to Slovakia when I am a Czech citizen? I was born here.’ He said: ‘You Roma believe you can do whatever you want here in our country.’ I was terribly afraid, I thought they were going to drive me into the forest and beat me up. I had a terrible stomach cramp and I was shaking all over… and back home I was still shaking long after it happened."
The officers addressed her sometimes formally and politely, sometimes familiarly and insultingly. "They mainly used the familiar form of address when they were bullying me," she said.
The lady called the state police (not the municipal ones) after this incident and described the whole situation to them on the phone. The state officers told her she would have to make her report in person, but she was afraid to go back outside – and not just then. She put compresses on her stomach and didn’t get out of bed for the next three days.
Romani woman beaten by municipal policeman
On Wednesday, 19 June 2013, an incident took place at Janov which has been described online by various racists and xenophobes as a case of a Romani woman assaulting a local policeman. Of course, the reality is that the policeman attacked and beat up the Romani woman.
Evidence for this claim is provided by video footage of the incident filmed by a witness using a mobile phone, the medical report of the victim’s injuries, and the testimony of several witnesses who are not related to her. According to the medical report, Ms Magda Kováčová suffers pain in the small of her back, especially when she walks, as a result of contusions to her lower back and pelvis.
Ms Kováčová is still on disability, taking pain relievers and anxiety medication, and going for water therapy for her back. Last week one black eye was still visible from the punches the policeman dealt her, as well as a welt on her arm.
She is still in a very poor psychological state and feels humiliated. She described what happened to news server Romea.cz as follows:
"My 15-year-old daughter was waiting for a girlfriend of hers – they had left the swimming pool at separate times because not everyone could fit into the car at the same time – and she was sitting on the steps that lead from the street to our building. Suddenly she calls me to say that she has been fined for sitting on the steps. I sent my husband down and told him I would follow him once I found my wallet. When I got there, my husband was asking the policeman what the fine was for. The policeman said to him: ‘Well, since you asked, it’s going to cost you CZK 500.’ I said to him: ‘So if I ask, as her mother, will you charge me CZK 1 000?’" Ms Kováčová told news server Romea.cz.
She says the policeman then began to rudely and vulgarly curse her. "My girl was stressed out by it all, she was almost in tears, so I told him I would take her home and then come settle it with him on her behalf because she’s a minor. Then I walked toward him and asked him to give me back her identification. He refused. I was angry, so I told him to keep it and took my girl to the elevator. While I was walking into the elevator, he grabbed my hair, spun me around, and punched me in the face. I flew back and banged my arm on the railing. Well, I defended myself – I didn’t hit him, I just put up my arm to keep him as far away from me as I could. I was struck again in the nose and then again in the face. There were two ladies there who saw it. After the third blow I fell to the ground and they caught me. Many people came running up because of it. He then left as if nothing had happened. A moment later he was calmly talking to the state police who arrived at the scene," Ms Kováčová said.
Ms Kováčová told the whole story to the Litvínov state police officers (not the municipal police) and said she would be filing criminal charges against the local policeman. However, she later learned that the state police officers recorded her testimony only as an "explanation" of the incident.
This is a rather common trick used by the police. They register the testimony of someone who is ignorant of these matters not as a report of a crime, but merely as an explanation of why they responded to a call, and then they shelve the case.
"The police officers told me the case had been taken up by the detectives in Most, so I went there. A younger man there told me it would be handled by the municipality as a misdemeanor proceedings. I said to him: ‘Why isn’t this a felony? What happened to my report of a crime?’ He answered that he didn’t have any record of my pressing charges, only the criminal charges that the policeman has filed against me! Then he told me that I allegedly disobeyed an order given by that policeman – but he never gave me any orders, not during the whole time. From all of that I understood that the misdemeanor proceeding was to be conducted against me, not against the person who assaulted me," Ms Kováčová said. She then went to the office of the state prosecutor in Most and filed criminal charges again.
Ms Kováčová’s story has been confirmed by her daughter and her partner, Rudolf Mešo. "I asked the policeman why he fined my daughter," Mr Mešo told us. "The policeman answered: ‘Well, since you asked, it’s going to cost you CZK 500.’ I responded that he can’t fine me for asking something. He started being rude and then it all went down."
The testimony of Ms Helena Daniová, who witnessed the incident, is unequivocal. "There were two local policemen, one Romani and another ‘white’. The ‘white’ one first pushed the children around and then beat Magda up in the hallway. He struck her several times and I think she also banged against the elevator door during it. I got angry and told him that they treat us as if we were all in prison – they beat us, they threaten us, they curse at us, all for no reason at all," Ms Daniová told news server Romea.cz.
Video footage was recorded that supports the description of these events given above and that clearly shows the policeman striking Ms Kováčová several times. It can be seen at http://www.romea.cz/cz/zpravodajstvi/domaci/janov-litvinovsti-straznici-sikanuji-a-zastrasuji-mistni-romy-jeden-z-nich-zmlatil-mladou-zenu
Petitions and threats
These stories help to flesh out an occurrence that took place in Janov two days ago. An older Romani gentleman was sitting on a "structural element", as the ordinance calls anything built by human beings in public space there. Two policemen came up to him and one began to boss him around. After a verbal exchange, the policeman started to threaten to punch the gentleman and waved his nightstick at him. The Romani gentleman could take it no longer and erupted at the policeman, addressing him in the familiar register as well. While this conflict has not been confirmed by witnesses (Romea.cz will verify its veracity), the description is, of course, consonant with what other Romani residents of Janov and social worker Ondřej Kocur claim about police behavior there.
Local Romani residents there have had enough of the fact that municipal representatives are treating them like second-class people. Some of them, mainly young men, are radicalizing.
Most of the residents, however, are continuing to rely on the ordinary mechanisms to help get everything in order. They have compiled a petition demanding the installation of benches and the designation of public areas in which resting and sitting can take place at the Janov housing estate.
"We, the citizens – who are also your voters – are fundamentally opposed to representatives of the town of Litvínov continuing their repressive, segregationist policy of violating our constitutional right to freedom of movement," reads the petition. The motion was initiated by Miroslav Kováč of the Equal Opportunities Party (Strana rovných příležitostí – SRP), who until recently lived at the Janov housing estate as well.
We will be reporting in more detail about the threats mentioned above and about other testimonies given by local Roma about the behavior of the Litvínov municipal police. We reached out to the mayor of Litvínov and the commander of the municipal police with questions about the situations described here, but neither of them ever responded, not even several days after our questions were raised. We will continue to contact them, other representatives of the town, and representatives of state institutions about the situation there.
