Czech pro-Kremlin disinformation Facebook page sparks wave of racist, vulgar comments about non-white infant
News server Aktuálně.cz reports that police in Třinec, Czech Republic are investigating racist comments made online against a male infant whose parents have Czech-Vietnamese and Kurdish roots. The commentaries were posted to the xenophobic Facebook page WeAreHereAtHome, which has since renamed itself Zprávy.cz and purports to publish serious news reporting.
The incident began when WeAreHereAtHome republished a photograph of a dark-skinned newborn from a regional edition of news server Deník.cz. The photograph was published last April along with other newborns from that month.
WeAreHereAtHome’s Facebook profile shared the photograph with a caption stating that the only adequate response to the birth of an “Ibrahim” would be the birth of three “Jan Nováks”. A Facebook user under the name of Josef Karban responded to the photo by posting “Drown him immediately”.
“These monsters, who cares, get him out of here!!! The best would be to Africa,” Facebook user Ludmila Hudcová posted.
“Oh fuck, they are already breeding, all is lost!” posted Facebook user Martin Litzwan. The administrators of the page responded to just one of the comments posted, the question “Well so what? Should we be shitting ourselves?”
The administrators’ response was: “Not yet, but in 15 years.” Police have begun investigating the racist comments.
“We received the report in mid-November, the case is being investigated. Officers have begun criminal proceedings,” Karolína Bělunková, spokesperson for the Moravian-Silesian Regional Police, told Aktuálně.cz.
Police would not provide any further details, referencing the sensitivity of the case and the child’s age. They would not be drawn about the number of people they are investigating or what crimes they suspect have been committed.
Aktuálně.cz reports that police are focusing on the authors of five of the crudest comments at the most. This is not the first racist online assault on a young child to happen recently in the Czech Republic.
At practically that same time last year (mid-November), a wave of hateful, racist comments was posted in response to a photograph of first-graders at a school in Teplice that was published by the media. The class was comprised of children who were of Arab, Roma and Vietnamese origin.
