The confirmation that Slavia Prague hooligans with violent pasts were among those attacking Roma in the Czech town of Sokolov? Selfies.
Previous speculation that those who assaulted Romani people in Sokolov, Czech Republic on 23 July were hooligan fans of the Slavia Prague football team has been confirmed now that some of the attackers have been identified by the Antifa.cz server on the basis of selfies they took and posted online. News server Romea.cz has also identified those same faces in various videos of the assault committed against local Roma there.
Antifa.cz used selfies the Slavia Prague hooligans took of themselves and then posted online while on the train to Sokolov. Those photographs, according Antifa.cz, were taken by, posted by, and show well-known figures from the Slavia Prague hooligan scene.
O. Š. is one. He was also photographed by local Roma in Sokolov during the attack on their community and several members held up his image during Sunday’s protest in Sokolov, accusing him of having actively assaulted Romani children.
Š., according to Antifa.cz, is active in neo-Nazi groups. They also say he participated in the neo-Nazi attack in Thunovská Street in Prague several years ago, which was perpetrated against people demonstrating in support of receiving refugees.
That same group of neo-Nazis then attacked the Klinika Social Center elsewhere in Prague that same day and attempted to set it on fire. Š., according to Antifa.cz, is an active Slavia Prague hooligan who trains as a boxer in the Rebel gym, which is owned by former porn star Robert Rosenberg.
The person in one of the selfies wearing a sailor’s hat on the train and holding a can of Krušovice beer – which he can also be seen holding in the footage that was taken just after the attack in Sokolov was committed – is J. T.. He is also alleged to have been quite active during the recent Sokolov attack.
Another Slavia Prague hooligan involved in the Sokolov attack is M. V., who wears his hair long and who also participated in the attack in Thunovská Street, according to Antifa.cz, which also reports that he was given a suspended sentence for assaulting a Black person and that he attended a recent demonstration on the Old Town Square in Prague against the Government’s public health measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. He is said to be a devotee of martial arts and a poker player.
The group of aggressive Slavia fans assaulted local Romani people, including children, on Friday, 23 July. Children were the racists’ first targets.
One of the Romani men whom they assaulted has posted a video to social media allegedly showing the traces of blood left on the asphalt after the children were injured. In that same video he describes how the assailants attacked other Romani people.
“They were saying ‘Black swine, we’ll kill you, to the gas chambers with you!’ ” says Emil Karička in a video he posted to social media. Police are continuing to investigate the entire incident in Sokolov.
News server Romea.cz is asking the Slavia Prague football club for comment on this racist attack, which was apparently committed by their fans. Romani men and women who witnessed the intervention by police in Sokolov have also criticized the approach taken by those officers, saying they believe their sympathies were with the assailants.
The Internal Affairs Department is reportedly investigating the behavior of the officers on the scene. According to the eyewitnesses, an officer placed the barrel of his service pistol against a Romani woman’s head and other officers accused the Roma of being welfare recipients.
