Czech Police propose indicting football fans who assaulted African man on a Prague tram for racist reasons
After an investigation lasting six months, the Czech Police are proposing charges against the three Sigma Olomouc football fans who assaulted a man from West Africa on a tram in Prague last November, resulting in his hospitalization. Several assailants were arrested by police the same day of the incident and the investigation was begun.
“The charges are felony battery, rioting, and defamation of an ethnic, national, racial or other group of persons,” police spokesperson Jan Daněk said. The attackers were aged between 18 and 21 when they assaulted the 36-year-old on the tram at the I.P. Pavlova stop in the heart of the capital.
When approximately 20 young football fans entered the tram and saw the dark-skinned man, they began to yell at him that he was a “black mug and dirty nigger.” They also shouted “Go back to Africa! Blacks and Jews to the gas!” according to the victim.
Next they threw lemons at him, punched him, and then dragged him from his seat and kicked him. None of the other passengers came to the victim’s aid.
The man has lived in Prague for a decade and, in addition to Czech, speaks six other languages including Vietnamese. He also holds a PhD from a Prague university and works as a programmer for a multinational firm.
“I have done my best to integrate into society all this time, I taught schoolchildren French as a volunteer, for example,” the victim told news server Aktualně.cz in the immediate aftermath of the attack. “Now I have the feeling that none of that mattered.”
“I am so disappointed that nobody came to my aid,” the victim said. “Most of the people on the tram whom I asked to testify to what they saw refused.”
