Intel Brief: Czech Extremism

Growing right-wing extremism in the Czech Republic will continue to result in violent attacks targeting Roma individuals, and it is unlikely that a new government initiative will significantly improve the situation. As such, a more effective response from law enforcement will be necessary to tackle the problem. As most analysts agree, only the improvement of economic and social conditions of the Roma, including emphasis on education, will result in any long-term success toward eliminating segregation and inequities between the various communities of the Czech Republic.

The Vitkov attack

Long simmering tensions between Roma and right-wing elements of Czech society spiked recently as a result of two separate incidents. On 18 April, unidentified arsonists turned off water access to a Roma house in Vítkov, a small town in the country’s northeast, and external pageburnedcall_madeit down, leaving a two-year-old girl gravely injured. While the house was on fire, in the northern town of Usti nad Labem, a group of more than 500 neo-Nazi militants external pagemarchedcall_made through the streets to celebrate the anniversary of Hitler’s birthday. The two incidents created public outrage across the country and won the attention of both the prime minister and president, who external pageacknowledgedcall_made the problem of growing extremism in the country.

Growing number of incidents

The arson in Vitkov was not an isolated case of violence against the Czech Roma community. In northern Moravia alone, more than 10 similar external pageattackscall_made have occurred recently. However, in the last few months, the number of racially motivated violent attacks and demonstrations targeting Roma neighborhoods across the country have significantly external pageincreasedcall_made. Far-right extremists have more frequently called for discrimination and violence. Other countries, such as Hungary, have also witnessed this new trend, with several arsons, murders and assaults targeting Roma.

Demonstrations

Thousands of Roma across the country attended simultaneous peaceful marches, organized by initiative Dost (“Enough is enough”) on 3 May, to protest neo-Nazism and intensified violence targeting their communities and to draw the government’s attention to the growing problem. Militants associated with the Workers' Party, National Resistance and the Autonomous Nationalists disturbed a demonstration in Chomutov, attacking the activists. Police did not intervene. Several political, religious and civic activists attended the demonstration in Prague, indicating that non-Roma Czechs acknowledge the problem as well.

Roma response

Roma activists have external pagecalledcall_made for their communities not to depend on the state for protection, and to prepare themselves to fight back if attacked by neo-Nazis. They claim the situation is intolerable and that the attacks will external pagecontinuecall_made. The Roma community has already initiated defense mechanisms, which include neighborhood vigilante external pagepatrolscall_made in some regions of the country.

Faced with xenophobia and hostility in the Czech Republic, Roma increasingly seek asylum abroad. According to the Canadian Embassy in Prague, 861 Czechs, the majority of them Roma, applied for asylum in 2008. In the first quarter of 2009, more than 650 asylum seekers external pagefiledcall_made their applications. The numbers are significantly higher when compared with other Central European countries, i.e. 288 Hungarians external pageappliedcall_made for asylum in Canada in 2008. A Canadian newspaper, the National Post, external pagereportscall_made that the Czech Republic has become one of the country’s top origin countries for refugees, ahead of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Current situation

The Czech Republic remains the only member of the European Union that lacks a comprehensive anti-discrimination law. It has also failed to eliminate discrimination of Roma children in the education system, as required by a European Court of Human Right's external pagerulingcall_made from 2007. A number of European Commission and Czech government programs aimed at improving the social and economic position of Roma in the last decade failed to alleviate poverty, educational disadvantages and frequent discrimination. Roma activists claim that cultural and social isolation has external pagedeepenedcall_made segregation.

According to a recent Amnesty International external pagereportcall_made, both government officials and individuals discriminate against the Roma in numerous spheres of life, including housing, health care, employment and education. There have been several mass external pageevictionscall_made of Roma tenants from municipally owned housing in Bohumín, Vsetín and other towns, which authorities allegedly carried out in a way that violated their rights.

Roma are the biggest minority in the Czech Republic, with its size estimated at 250,000-300,000 people. About one-third of that population external pagelivecall_made in ghetto communities, the majority of which were created in the last decade, accounting for housing segregation.

Disadvantage in the education system is likely one of the more serious problems, as it will have long-term effects on the Roma society. Recent surveys suggest that a quarter of Czech schools transfer Roma children, which they find difficult to manage, to special schools. As a result, approximately 30 percent of Roma children do not attend normal schools, and overall, Roma children have only a 50 percent external pagechancecall_made of finishing elementary school on time.

Polls consistently external pagemirroredcall_made Czechs’ negative attitude toward the Roma. Most recent ones suggest that 77 percent of Czechs consider Roma as the “least likeable” minority, with 42 percent resenting them. The Czech STEM agency’s survey suggests that the numbers external pagedeterioratedcall_made in 2008 by five percent.

Extremism

The Czech interior minister admitted that 2008 witnessed a significant radicalization of and shift toward the far-right. According to Jeremy Druker, director of Czech-based non-profit organization external pageTransitionscall_made and a senior writer for ISN Security Watch, “A few years ago it looked like extremism was diminishing, and suddenly there have been more attacks and also more neo-Nazi organized events.”

Czech counterintelligence spokesman Jan Subert further external pageexplainscall_made that neo-Nazis, who apart from violent attacks used to focus on spreading propaganda, have lately increased their presence by taking part in various events and attempting to become political forces. Further radicalization, professionalization and wider access to the public space of the movement occurred, he said.

“People underestimated how strong the movement was growing underneath the surface,” says Druker.

Its last case in the Supreme Administrative Court in March 2009 proves that even the Czech government underestimated the strength of the movement. The Czech Interior Ministry officially registered the Workers' Youth, a young people's section of the extreme right-wing Workers' Party, but soon the government accused the group of violating the law and associating with the far-right groups and sought its delegalization. The court, however, external pagerejectedcall_made the prosecution’s claim due to lack of evidence. It appears that the government did not prepare the case well, assuming it would be easy to win. Recently, the Workers' Youth have registered a magazine called National Resistance (which is also the name of the neo-Nazi movement). Publication will begin this month.

Government response

On 5 May, the Czech government approved a new anti-extremists strategy in reaction to the recent intensification of attacks and hostility toward the Roma. The strategy aims to diminish the scale of extremism and xenophobia in the country. It introduces more effective penalties for extremist-related crimes and emphasizes prevention, particularly through education.

The country’s city and town officials will receive external pageguidelinescall_made on how to react to controversial events that far-right extremists may organize, especially on anniversaries of dates important to their movement, the Prague Monitor reports.  “external pageFlying courtscall_made,” which will enable judges to try the perpetrators of hate crimes on the spot, will be used if prevention proves ineffective, according to Czech radio.