European blood
09-13-2011, 08:25 PM
Prague. Czech police arrested 21 rightwing activists Saturday at a racially charged demonstration in the northwest of the country against the Roma community, AFP reported.
Several hundred members of the extreme-right DSSS political party rallied in three cities - Novy Bor, Varnsdorf and Rumburk - to protest a rise in crime they blame on a recent influx of Roma, also known as gypsies.
"Police arrested 21 people," including two wearing clothes marked with Nazi symbols, regional police spokesman Jarmila Hrubesova told AFP.
In Varnsdorf, police used a water cannon to block demonstrators from storming a dormitory inhabited by Roma.
The extremists, who pelted police with rocks, firecrackers and bottles, were joined by several hundred area residents, local media reported.
There has seen a rise in such incidents in recent months, following an influx of Roma from other parts of the country.
The influx, according to media reports, has been caused by land speculators buying abandoned homes and installing Roma families in them in a scheme to benefit from government subsidies for those who aid the economically disadvantaged.
There was a notable rise in tension last month following two racially charged attacks by Roma on the area's ethnic majority, police said.
"Despite all their negative experiences with perpetrators of specific crimes, the people of the Czech Republic must not adopt the extremist principle that advocates collective punishment," government human rights commissioner Monika Simunkova said in a statement.
Out of the country's 10.5 million people, between 250,000 to 300,000 are Roma, more than 60 percent of whom are unemployed.
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n259229
Several hundred members of the extreme-right DSSS political party rallied in three cities - Novy Bor, Varnsdorf and Rumburk - to protest a rise in crime they blame on a recent influx of Roma, also known as gypsies.
"Police arrested 21 people," including two wearing clothes marked with Nazi symbols, regional police spokesman Jarmila Hrubesova told AFP.
In Varnsdorf, police used a water cannon to block demonstrators from storming a dormitory inhabited by Roma.
The extremists, who pelted police with rocks, firecrackers and bottles, were joined by several hundred area residents, local media reported.
There has seen a rise in such incidents in recent months, following an influx of Roma from other parts of the country.
The influx, according to media reports, has been caused by land speculators buying abandoned homes and installing Roma families in them in a scheme to benefit from government subsidies for those who aid the economically disadvantaged.
There was a notable rise in tension last month following two racially charged attacks by Roma on the area's ethnic majority, police said.
"Despite all their negative experiences with perpetrators of specific crimes, the people of the Czech Republic must not adopt the extremist principle that advocates collective punishment," government human rights commissioner Monika Simunkova said in a statement.
Out of the country's 10.5 million people, between 250,000 to 300,000 are Roma, more than 60 percent of whom are unemployed.
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n259229