Roma arrested taking stuff from dump, media call them thieves
Almost all of the Czech-language media are reporting that in places hit by flooding, specifically in the town of Chrastava, “looting” is being done by Roma. Investigation of the details of these incidents, however, paints an entirely different picture.
News server iDNES.cz reported on the arrest of three Roma in Chrastava as follows: “Police officers have arrested another three people suspected of looting. A man and two women in Chrastava made off with items people had removed from flooded houses there. ‘The arrested trio is now in a police cell. Police are investigating the case, further information is not available at the moment,’ said Vlasta Suchánková, spokesperson for the Liberec Police. Milan Franko, Liberec Region Police Director, told Czech Television those arrested were three Roma who had taken diapers, a pram and a video player.”
Speaking on a ČT24 broadcast, Franko said: “In Chrastava three citizens of Roma nationality were arrested because some diapers, a pram, and an older video player were found in their possession. They have been arrested with the agreement of the state prosecutor. Another investigation will be performed today, because the items were in a garbage dump that belongs to the town hall in Chrastava – de facto people throw things away there that they believe they don’t need, but no one donated that property to those who took it, so we are investigating whether this wasn’t a crime of theft as per that particular regulation of paragraph 205.”
Klára Kalibová, a lawyer with the In Iustitia organization, told news server Romea.cz that “If something is thrown away at a dump, it has been abandoned, and its ownership is transferred to the state. Given the fact that such items have no value, however, a case of removing something from a dump will not legally be considered the crime of theft.”
Her view is confirmed by yet another lawyer contacted by Romea.cz. “Theft can only be committed by someone who gets possession of items that belong to someone else, or who makes someone’s property inaccessible. By its very nature an abandoned (not a lost) item cannot be taken away from anyone, since no one, not even the former owner, has access to it. This, therefore, cannot be theft. Criminal liability also cannot be imputed because the societal harm of such behavior (taking items from a dump) is non-existent,” Jan Zapotil of the Law Offices of Zapotil, Milner, Stehlík and Co. told Romea.cz. “The dump is fenced off and at other times runs under a special regime, but during the floods we made use of it so citizens could freely put their unneeded things there,” Miroslav Chvála, the registrar of Chrastava, told Romea.cz.
News server iDNES.cz originally completely failed to report that the police director had said the Roma had taken items from the town dump which someone had thrown away. They did not add that information to the article until editors from Romea.cz called upon them to do so.
The iDNES.cz editors also published Czech Interior Minister Radek John’s opinion of the incident: “Interior Minister Radek John praised all Czech thieves, saying they were showing their solidarity by not looting. He was responding to the arrest of five foreigners in the flood-afflicted parts of Liberec region. ‘I am very glad our Czech thieves are showing solidarity, Czech thieves do not loot. They know that to steal from these people would really be a dramatically filthy thing to do. Those who were arrested are foreigners who are not in solidarity with Czech citizens,’ John told the Czech Press Agency.”
Even though the ČT24 channel reported the real essence of the case in its broadcast, the written article on its website continues to claim that the Roma in this case are thieves: “Late last night police arrested three Roma in the act of theft in flood-afflicted Chrastava. They were carrying diapers, a pram, and a video player. They are said to have been under the impression that they were taking them from the dump, but the incident is theft nonetheless…” Not even the police director whose comments the channel had broadcast earlier had gone as far as to claim the incident was theft, but merely commented that police were investigating whether the incident was one of theft or not.
The Roma apprehended in Chrastava while removing the items from the dump are still in a police cell as part of preliminary detention today. Liberec Police spokesperson Vlasta Suchánková told Romea.cz that the ownership rights to the items taken from the dump are still being investigated.
