Czech media, police accuse Romani family of inciting brawl with non-Roma at children's pool, Romea.cz first to report the Romani mother's testimony

The Plivátko swimming facility in the Czech town of Dubí is probably the most
famous one in the entire country right now. News server Romea.cz has reported
that an apparently banal incident among some children playing at the children’s
pool there first sparked an argument and then a brawl between a Romani woman and
a “white” woman.

Men then joined the fighting and the incident became one for the national
news. Even though it happened last Tuesday, the major media outlets have not yet
managed to get any testimony from a single Romani man or woman who was present
at the time to describe their perspective.

News server Romea.cz is now publishing an exclusive interview with an
eyewitness to the entire incident who describes the beginning stages of it
completely differently than most media outlets have reported (video in Czech
here). The beginning of the dispute is described by a woman who was one of the
main actors because it concerned her child, who was accused of allegedly trying
to “drown” another child and thereby provoking the entire conflict.

VIDEO

The Romani woman denies those allegations. From her perspective, the children
were just splashing each other with water.

“That lady grabbed my child by the shoulder, began shaking him, and shouted
‘I’m sick of you, you’re pissing me off’ and then shoved him into the wading
pool like a rag,” the Romani mother told Romea.cz. She said she ran to her child
when she saw that.

“I asked her how dare she push my child like that,” the Romani mother said.
“She began to curse at us. She threatened to ‘cunt-punt’ my friend. I picked up
my child, who was in shock, and I went back to my blanket,” the Romani mother,
who has been labeled by most media outlets as the woman to blame for the
incident, told news server Romea.cz.

The Romani mother describes the “white” woman as continuing her abuses and
shouting, at which point another Romani woman got involved in the conflict. “Why
are you being vulgar when you’re the one who harmed her child?” the Romani
mother describes the other Romani woman as saying, to which the “white” mother
responded and then both women began to physically fight.

At that moment a man named David M. arrived on the scene, running from the
other side of the swimming facility and jumping into the children’s pool. “He
hit that Romani woman, shoved her away from him and she fell,” an eyewitness
named Lucie told news server Romea.cz.

“That led to enormous confusion and shouting. People began jumping into the
pool for their children,” Lucie said.

Another eyewitness with whom Romea.cz has communicated and whose identity is
known to reporters has described the scene similarly. “It happened absolutely
differently than what we saw reported on television or how the media are
describing this conflict,” said this eyewitness whose own blanket was close to
the children’s pool and who saw the entire dispute from the very beginning.

“David M. attacked first, he ran into the pool and brutally shoved the Romani
woman who was fighting with the Czech woman, he punched her. There were no seven
Romani men beating him up,” this eyewitness went on to say, refuting the current
reports in the media.

According to this eyewitness, just two people fought with David M. One of
them was the Romani woman who was assaulted, and the other was her brother, who
came to her aid.

“The other people who were there ran to the pool to get their children,” the
eyewitness told news server Romea.cz. Another anonymous testimony describing the
incident as having happened differently than media are reporting it has appeared
on the Facebook social networking site and was reported on by news server
Extra.cz.

That testimony is not from any of the Romani women involved. “I was there at
that conflict at the swimming pool in Dubí. The person who began the argument
was a woman of our origin [a “white” Czech]. She began to yell at the Romani
woman using all kinds of vulgar language, I will not repeat it. Then another
lady came over to her politely and said the children were just being children
and some other things. Then they began to pull each other’s hair. They started
to tussle there. A young man then got involved with the fighting and believe me,
I saw it with my own eyes, that gentleman shoved the [Romani] woman, and he was
being rude and maybe even drunk. I don’t know if he was, it would be deceptive
of me to say he was for sure. He did stand up for [the “white” woman], my hat’s
off to him for that, but he should not have gotten involved!” the eyewitness
posted to Facebook using the nickname Blond Karča.

News server Romea.cz has since ascertained that her Facebook profile page now
has a different name. The original post continued: “It was women who were
arguing, not guys. The lady who is crying in all the news reports [the “white”
mother] – why hasn’t she told the truth? She was sitting on her butt and talking
to people, she was not paying any attention to her child, and the lady of Romani
origin was also sitting on her butt, and they left their children in the water.
If you had been there your hair would have stood right on edge. That gentleman
should never have allowed himself to touch that woman! For that reason, the
husband [sic] of the woman of Romani origin got involved.”

“Do you know how many of our people were there, people of our skin color, and
none of them stood up for anybody, they all just stood around. So don’t talk
nonsense here! The first lady should have been watching her child, and the
gentleman had no reason to touch the other lady. If it had to happen, then a
woman should have done it, not a gentleman fighting a woman. That’s why they
jumped at him, that’s the truth!!!” the testimony posted to Facebook asserts.

Local and then state police are said to have rapidly responded. “The police
officers who arrived did not pay any attention to us at all, they just
interrogated the majority-society people, they did not give us any room to tell
them anything even though we attempted to do so,” the eyewitnesses who have
given interviews to Romea.cz said.

“That incident was, in my opinion, absolutely unnecessary, it would never
have happened if the Czech [“white”] mother had not provoked it by being crude
and vulgar,” the eyewitness named Lucie said, adding that she did not believe
David M. behaved heroically by shoving the Romani woman. The women who have
spoken to Romea.cz say that many people saw what actually happened but are
afraid to speak up for fear of their own safety.

Reportedly local people are also afraid of and concerned about racists from
the local Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS). The entire scandal over the
incident was unleashed on social networks by a follower of the “Freedom and
Direct Democracy” (SPD) party, Petr Štefanec, who posts under the nickname
Stevie Bobo.

News server Extra.cz first drew attention to that fact, which is easily
ascertained from the Facebook profile. All the rest of the the Czech media,
however, have uncritically republished his version of the incident.

Štefanec, for example, alleged that David. M’s nose had been broken, that his
teeth had been knocked out, and that the children’s pool was full of blood. “I
see this guy, bloodied and torn up, without teeth, but he’s alive. The
children’s pool is full of his blood, I also had his blood on my feet and
hands,” news server iDNES.cz quoted him as saying.

According to video footage broadcast by the Prima television station,
however, which interviewed the injured man, it is apparent that he is not
missing any teeth and that his nose is also in the right place. From the
photographs published by the media taken immediately after the incident there is
no blood to be seen in the children’s pool.

Which description of the incident is correct will apparently only be
demonstrated by the police investigation. For the time being, that investigation
is still accusing just one woman of misconduct – according to information
provided to Romea.cz, that womani is Romani, but not the mother of the child
over whom the entire conflict allegedly arose.