Czechs must react to #pogrom mood
Around 1,500 far-right activists staged protests against the country’s Roma minority in eight Czech cities on Saturday. In Ostrava they tried to enter a neighbourhood populated by Roma and clashed with police. The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung finds these developments unsettling: “The events in Ostrava in particular made it clear that a racist mob was on the prowl looking for violence. There can be no meaningful discussion with such people. They can only be taken seriously to the extent that the security forces must use the right methods to stop their activities. What’s really dangerous is that a growing proportion of Czechs apparently agree with the anti-Roma slogans of the far right. The politicians must react to this, among other things by investigating this trend and addressing the problems that exist not just in the Roma settlements, but also in their environs. And they must also stand up to the far right’s smear campaign instead of copying it.”
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