Skinhead Attacks

As Czech Skinheads Escalate Attacks, Gypsies Start to Put Up a Fight

(By Peter S. Green, Published: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 1998)

PRAGUE: Helena Bihariova, 26, did not deserve to die on the night of Feb. 17. Her only crime was to be a dark-skinned Czech citizen of Gypsy origin in the northern Czech town of Vrchlabi.

For three young, crew-cut Czech men, that was enough. On a bridge above the Elbe River, they beat and kicked Mrs. Bihariova, a mother of four, and threw her unconscious into the fast-running, icy waters.

A radio journalist dived in after Mrs. Bihariova and managed to grab her while holding on to a tree root. But the root snapped, and the police rescued only the journalist, Eliska Pilarova, several hundred meters downstream. The three attackers were arrested several hours later.

The past weeks have seen a new string of attacks on Gypsies by Czech skinheads, junior fascists with signature nylon bomber jackets and lace-up boots. Their racist, neo-Nazi rhetoric and rock music characterize the Gypsies as subhumans.

But for the first time, Gypsies (or Romanies, as they prefer to be known) have begun to strike back at whites, attacking skinheads and even policemen.

At least 20 people have been killed in racially motivated attacks in the Czech Republic since 1992, nearly all of them Romanies, according to the Helsinki Citizens' Committee, a human rights group.

The skinhead movement is secretive, but according to local press reports there are at least several thousand Czech skinheads, mainly in their teens and early 20s, grouped in 10 or more organizations, many linked to neofascist movements abroad. They include White Aryan Supremacy, Bohemia Hammer Skins and Vlastenecka Liga (Fatherland League).

Since January, the homes of at least two Romany families have been firebombed, while other racist attacks — including an assault by skinheads on a Congolese physician and on a dark-skinned Afghan student — have raised fears.

Ivan Vesely, a Romany political leader, said that in Ostrava, a depressed northern industrial town, he had seen posters signed by the Fatherland League challenging local Romanies to battle.

He and other leaders say the tension in the Romany community is worse than at any time in decades. Several elements are to blame, they say: Mrs. Bihariova's death, the skinheads' growing potency and a series of recent court cases that the leaders say show a double standard in applying Czech laws to racially motivated crime.

"The death of Mrs. Bihariova was a catalyst," Mr. Vesely said. "The Roms aren't letting themselves be beaten up anymore."

The attacks and growing tension with the majority white community has taken its toll on Czech Romanies.

Last summer, after a television documentary showed Czech Romanies living a better life as refugees in Canada, hundreds sold their belongings and fled to Canada and Britain to ask for asylum. Most were refused asylum and returned home.

In the aftermath of the latest round of violence, many of the estimated 300,000 Romanies in the Czech Republic are again looking to leave. Last week, a Romany delegation visited the U.S. Embassy in Prague to ask for visas.