MfD: Teachers at an Olomouc elementary school make jokes at expense of Roma

Teachers at the Nedvědova Elementary School in Olomouc, which is working to integrate Romani children, have been making jokes at the expense of the Roma. One year ago, someone used an official school e-mail address to send teachers an e-mail to their private accounts containing the text of a fictitious letter making fun of a Romani family. A similar case had occurred at the school one year prior. Yesterday’s Central Moravian edition of the Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) daily reported that police are now investigating the school’s e-mail.

MfD reports that a teacher who received the email and knew he was being let go reported the incident to the police. Both e-mails were sent from an address to which only the school director and his two deputy directors have access.

“I did not personally receive the e-mail, I only found out about it when it became a police matter,” school director Jan Hándl told the daily. He believes the jokes were sent from the computer assigned to his deputy director for the first three grades, Pavel Pala. Mr Pala did not want to comment until the police investigation is completed.

One of the e-mails included the following text: “Last week my neighbor fell into a barrel of pear brandy. They tried to pull him out, but he heroically drowned and then burned for three days in the crematorium.” The e-mail also included what purported to be a letter from a Romani mother to her son in prison, full of spelling errors. The other e-mail included an image, evidently taken from the internet, which was reminiscent of the vehicle used to drive on the surface of the moon, but mounted on blocks instead of on wheels. The text accompanying the image read “The presence of Roma on the Moon confirmed!!!”

The town leadership, which established the school, says the entire affair is inexcusable. “The school director has been emphatically warned to take measures to make sure such a situation never repeats itself,” Mayor Martin Novotný told MfD.

Marie Štrbáková, spokesperson for the Olomouc Police, told the daily the matter had been taken up by specialists in right-wing extremism. “Criminal proceedings have not yet been initiated,” she said.