arson attack

Czech commentator expected stronger condemnation by politicians of the racist reactions to the worst arson attack since 1990

21.8.2020 16:31  full story

11 deaths in fire, worst such death toll since 1990, met with antigypsyist celebration by Czech Internet

10.8.2020 8:39  full story

Italy: 1 000 attend march to mourn Romani children who died in arson attack

19.5.2017 12:46 Roughly 1 000 people in Rome, Italy attended a march to protest the brutal arson attack at the Primavera shopping center during which three Romani sisters died, two of them
minors, last week. People have now planted three olive trees in their memory.  full story

Director of ODIHR on arson in Italy that killed Romani children: If this was racism there must be a strong reaction

15.5.2017 7:58 Michael G. Link, the director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has
condemned the murder of three Romani sisters aged four, eight and 20 last week. They died after a Molotov cocktail attack on the caravan in which they were sleeping with their parents and other siblings on 10 May 2017 in Rome, Italy.  full story

Italy: Two Romani children and their older sister die in arson attack

11.5.2017 9:49 ANSA, the Italian wire service, reported yesterday that two Romani girls ages four and eight and their 20-year-old sister died early yesterday morning during an arson attack in Rome, Italy. The assailant's identity has not yet been ascertained.  full story

Romania: Ethnic Hungarian mob commits arson against Romani children accused of stealing

18.4.2017 7:14 The European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) reports that on the last Friday in March an arson attack was committed in the small town of Gheorgheni, Romania against a Romani-occupied home. Agricultural storage buildings, an annex to the home, the home itself and other outbuildings were burned to the ground.  full story

Czech Supreme Court upholds sentencing for neo-Nazi who attempted to burn 18 Romani people, eight of them children, to death

7.4.2017 9:47 Tomáš Kopecký, the man who committed a 2012 arson attack on a Romani-occupied residential hotel in the Czech town of Aš, must serve a prison sentence of six years and nine months, according to the Supreme Court. There were 18 people, eight of them children, in the building at the time.  full story

Germany: More than 3 000 attacks on refugees in 2016

7.3.2017 8:39 German authorities registered almost 10 violent attacks against immigrants daily during the course of 2016. A total of 560 people, 43 of them children, were injured during them.  full story

German court sentences xenophobes to seven and eight-year prison sentences for arson

17.2.2017 12:22 Six men, including a member of the ultra-right National Democratic Party (Národnědemokratická strana - NPD), have been convicted by a court in Germany of committing arson against a building slated for use as an asylum-seekers' shelter in 2015. Politician Maik Schneider has received the longest sentence.  full story

Germany: Pegida speechmaker charged with arson against mosque

14.12.2016 22:35 On 9 December the German media reported that the Federal General Prosecutor has filed charges against a man named Nino K. alleging that he committed arson attacks against a mosque during the week prior to the September celebration of the state holiday of German reunification. He is also charged with committing arson against the Congress Center in Dresden and planting fake bombs on a bridge there.  full story

France: Attack with firearms and Molotov cocktails against Roma over two nights - seven hospitalized, including a teenager

19.8.2016 14:58 During the late night hours of Monday and early morning hours of Tuesday a group of assailants threw Molotov cocktails into one of the biggest Romani encampments in Marseille, France. More attacks targeted the same location during Tuesday night and the early morning hours of Wednesday.  full story

France: Black youth dies in police custody, sparking riot, media wrongly attributes violence to Islamism

7.8.2016 9:38 Last week a street gang set a public bus on fire in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis. Some international media, as well as anti-Islamic websites in the Czech Republic, ascribed the attack to Islamist radicals and alleged that the youths shouted "Allahu Akbar!" ("God is great!") during the attack.  full story

England: Arsonists attack Polish family in Plymouth

8.7.2016 11:00 Unidentified perpetrators have set fire to a shed near a home occupied by a Polish family in Plymouth, a town in the southwest of England. The family also received a letter threatening to attack them directly next time.  full story

Czech Republic: Extremists sentenced to almost 7 years in prison for arson attack

26.6.2016 16:18 Tomáš Kopecký and Michal Poláček, the men responsible for an arson attack on a residential hotel occupied by Romani people in the Czech town of Aš, will serve six years and nine months in prison. The High Court in Prague sentenced them on 22 June for racially-motivated attempted murder and reckless endangerment.  full story

Austria: Arsonists set future asylum-seeker shelter on fire

9.6.2016 6:38 A wooden building in the north of Austria near the Czech and German borders that was supposed to become a shelter for asylum seekers was set on fire last week. According to representatives of the Red Cross, which owns the building, the fire was set by arsonists.  full story

Austria: Arson attacks against Romani families from Romania

11.3.2016 20:38 Unidentified perpetrators set fire to the tents of Romani families from Romania in the Upper Austrian city of Linz at the beginning of March. Fortunately, no one was injured in that incident.  full story

Attila Balogh Hidvégi on serial murders in Hungary: Even brutal crimes did not spark Romani solidarity

19.1.2016 21:10 In connection with the recent verdict of the Hungarian Supreme Court upholding life sentences for three perpetrators of the serial murders of Romani people in Hungary and a 13-year sentence for their accomplice, news server Romea.cz is presenting in translation the following commentary by Romani journalist Attila Balogh Hidvégi who, according to his account, has followed this scandal intensively from the beginning and is completely, thoroughly familiar not just with the text of the indictment, but also with the events that occurred between the various hearings in the case. Hidvégi published his commentary on www.romnet.hu and we are reprinting it in translation here in a shortened form with their kind permission:  full story

Trial of the Czech cell of Blood & Honour enters its final phase

17.10.2015 15:27 A nine-member group of alleged neo-Nazis from various parts of the Czech Republic has been on trial before the Regional Court in Plzeň since February. From 12-13 October, closing arguments in the case were made by the prosecution, the attorney for the victims, and two of the defendants gave final statements.  full story

Germany: Arsonists set another refugee facility on fire, shooting also reported

16.7.2015 18:09 Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports that unidentified arsonists in Germany have set yet another building on fire that had been prepared to accommodate refugees. Last night arsonists attacked the still-empty complex in the Bavarian town of Reichertshofen.
 full story

Czech state removes children of Romani arson victim from her care

18.5.2015 21:40 At the beginning of May the trial continued at the Regional Court in Plzeň in the matter of the allegedly organized group that has been using the names "Blood and Honour" or "Combat 18". Some members of the group, according to the indictment, are said to have carried out an arson attack on a residential hotel occupied mostly by Romani families in the West Bohemian town of Aš in 2012.  full story