DSSS supporters outnumbered by Romani supporters in Krupka

Yesterday the Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) convened yet another one of its rallies in Krupka, Czech Republic, starting at 16:00. According to our correspondent on the scene, only 20-30 DSSS promoters attended. As many as 150 Romani people also assembled on Karel Čapek street and expressed their dissatisfaction by chanting and whistling.

The rally was held just a few dozen meters away from the place where police dispersed a crowd of opponents of neo-Nazism, including Romani people, in order to make way for a DSSS march in April. Yesterday, however, no incidents occurred.

In April, the troubled Horní Maršov housing estate was the site of police wielding firecrackers and tonfas, but yesterday all that could be heard were the anti-Romani statements that DSSS chair Tomáš Vandas has been repeating almost word for word for several years. The extremists evidently came to town to generate publicity prior to Saturday’s municipal elections. Results of two previous elections in the town had to be voided because various parties purchased the votes of the socially deprived.

The rally was announced to the town hall by Stanislav Holešinský, Sr, a DSSS member who ran on the party’s candidate list in the past two elections; his wife was the party’s leading candidate. While Ms Holešinská canvassed onlookers and did her best to distribute the party’s propaganda newspaper, there was very little interest – neither Vandas’s comments nor the paper’s headlines calling for the government to be brought down were very tempting to those present. Judging by their behavior and dress, the onlookers seemed mainly to be locals who had come to watch a demonstration that threatened to eventually turn violent. Roughly one-third of the group was comprised of journalists and plainclothes police officers.

“Police have deployed about 40 men and have another 40 in reserve,” police spokesperson Daniel Vítek told the Czech Press Agency. Yesterday there was no need for them to intervene. While as many as 150 Romani people were standing behind the police cordon, they were also there just to watch and did not join in the shouting against the DSSS done by local anarchists. After about 40 minutes, Vandas stopped speaking; he left the scene 20 minutes later. Most of those gathered dispersed as well.