The Roma are just one of many groups of minorities in the Czech Republic targeted by violent hate crimes, but many victims never turn to the police because they have no faith in them or in other institutions. Precise data about such attacks is therefore lacking.
These are the main conclusions of research currently being conducted in the Czech Republic as part of the Hate Crime – Forgotten Victims project realized by the Kulturbüro Sachsen e.V. organization in Dresden and the Prague-based organizations ROMEA, In IUSTITIA, and Tolerance and Civil Society, financed by the German foundation Erinerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft. The aim is to map the situation of victims of violent hate crime in the Czech Republic as well as the kinds of advice and assistance provided them.
Almost 30 organizations were interviewed as part of the project. While Roma are the most frequent victims of this type of violence, whether physical or verbal, other minorities are also victimized in this way, such as foreigners, homosexuals, drug addicts, homeless people, HIV-positive people, people living with AIDS, and ordinary citizens who either follow an “alternative” lifestyle or are engaged in the fight against right-wing extremism. “Currently there is a lot of discussion of the danger posed by right-wing extremism and the need to ban neo-Nazi demonstrations or concerts, but few people realize that this danger becomes specific for many people in the form of physical attacks, verbal attacks and the discrimination they face, often on a daily basis,” Miroslav Bohdálek of Kulturbüro Sachsen e.V. says, adding: “During our research we learned of many specific cases of attack or insults which, however, had never been reported to the police, because the victims fear revenge – or what is even worse, because they do not believe the police would be either able or willing to solve their case.”
On 4 and 5 November a seminar will be held in Prague for the organizations that participated in the research. They will be given the opportunity to see the preliminary results of the project and comment on them.
The cooperation between these organizations began in 2007 through the project “Dangerous Liaisons – Right-Wing Extremism in Local Cross-border Contact” (Nebezpečné známosti – Pravicový extremismus v malém příhraničním styku). The aim of this project was to map cooperation between right-wing extremists in Bohemia and Saxony. The results of this project are summarized in a publication of the same name which came out this August in both Czech and German. The publication can be ordered or downloaded at the website www.nebezpecne-znamosti.info and was financed by the Czech-German Fund for the Future and German foundations Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung.
One contribution of this publication, in addition to describing the historical and ideological contexts, is its specific documentation of how Czech neo-Nazis are inspired by German models. “The Czech neo-Nazis are taking more of a chance on socially relevant topics through which they are able to appeal to the broader public,” explains Friedemann Bringt of Kulturbüro Sachsen e.V. in Dresdeny, adding: “They are distancing themselves from compromised topics like the Jews, the Third Reich or the celebration of Adolf Hitler and are doing their best to score points with the public by criticizing the Roma. They are succeeding in gaining the support of a large part of the public which would otherwise never get involved with Nazism on their own initiative.”
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