Racist crime falling in Czech Republic - annual police report

The number of the people prosecuted over racially motivated crime slightly fell last year in the Czech Republic, according to the annual report of the Supreme State Attorney’s Office (NSZ) for 2006 released today.

However, the police often do not have sufficient equipment and knowledge to investigate racially motivated crime at the Internet, the report said.

Last year, 243 charges were brought over racially motivated crime, 51 of which were resolved in shortened proceedings.
Two years ago, the figures were 309 and 45 respectively, the report said.

The shortened court proceedings are possible if a perpetrator can only be sentenced to three years in prison. In such a case, the prosecution is shortened and the defendants are tried maximally 14 days after the crime is committed.
The NSZ report said most of the charges related to verbal attacks. However, the number of criminal acts committed through the Internet was rising, it added.

Pavel Hantak from the press department of the police headquarters told CTK there was a special police group focusing on computer-related crime.

"However, it is still not within our forces to check the tremendous amount of information offered at the Internet every day, every hour and every minute," Hantak said.