Slovakia: Romani children and women fall ill after unidentified man spreads unknown substance in their gathering place and uses pepper spray against a Romani woman who confronted him
In Dunajská Streda, Slovakia, an unidentified man has been spreading some kind of chemical around a place where Romani families gather. He later also used pepper spray against a Romani woman there.
Public broadcaster Radio and Television Slovakia (RTVS) reports that the man is said to have shouted anti-Romani, racist slogans during his pepper spray attack on the Romani woman. Slovakia’s National Criminal Agency (NAKA) is investigating.
According to RTVS, a group of Romani women and children used to regularly meet on the staircase of a local housing estate there. Last week, according to one woman, they all went home with red spots all over their bodies after one such gathering.
“A two-year-old child also came down with fever, the antibiotics are not working, doctors don’t know what it is,” the woman, who introduced herself as Monika, described to RTVS. She said that the next day some of the Romani women noticed a man in a protective suit was spraying something on the concrete stairs where all of them usually sit.
At first the Romani women believed the man was spraying disinfectant. “We told each other that they could just put a sign up if they don’t want us to sit there. We saw him the next day too, though,” Monika described the situation.
One of the Romani women asked the man what he was doing there, according to RTVS. He reportedly then began to shout abuse at her.
“He began shouting abuse about ‘gypsies’,” Monika said. When the woman interacting with him tried to photograph the evidence of what he was doing, he used pepper spray against her, RTVS reports, and she ended up in hospital.
Firefighters have since cleaned the spot and the authorities are endeavoring to determine what kind of material the man sprayed there. “The police in Dunajská Streda have launched a criminal prosecution for felony disorderly conduct. It has been decided to send the case to the relevant department of the Police Presidium, because the action was committed with a special motivation,” police spokesperson Zlatica Antalová explained to RTVS.
“A very sad incident happened on this day when we are commemorating Holocaust victims. One person was very cruel to another, just because that other person lives differently or has a different skin color. This should be immediately reported as a crime and the criminality of the hate speech should be investigated very thoroughly,” said Slovak Plenipotentiary for Romani Communities Ján Hero.
The police confirmed the case has been taken over by the NAKA. Monika admitted to RTVS that since that incident she has not seen her friends.
“I’m afraid, I’m not even brave enough to go into town now. My son keeps asking if they did that because we’re Romani. What am I supposed to tell him? That everybody wants to harm us because we’re Romani?” the young Romani woman asked.
