The Štúrova Street where the WAX2 club is located. (source: TASR)
On the night of Friday to Saturday, the police carried out a raid in the WAX2 club in Bratislava's centre. Five people were arrested.
According to police spokesman Michal Szeiff, the raid was a joint action of the financial administration and the police, aimed at checking the e-kasa cash registers, whether receipts were being handed out, as well as the detection of violent and drug-related crime.
Plastic bags with a white crystalline substance were seized and sent for examination. After completing procedural steps, the five people were released. A criminal prosecution in the matter of unauthorized possession of a narcotic and psychotropic substance has been initiated.
Speaking to the Startitup website, several attendees reported that they were ordered to stand facing a wall for up to two-and-a-half hours.
"We were all ordered to put our hands above our heads and go to the wall. We all lined up and there was silence. You couldn't even scratch, turn your head, we were being watched, my hands were hurting, but they had to stay above my head," one of them told Startitup.
In August, a similar raid took place at another club in Bratislava's centre, the KC Dunaj venue. According to attendees, the raid was brutal and force was used against them.
In the immediate aftermath, the police and the financial administration provided conflicting information. At first they said that the raid was due to drugs, but later insisted that the reason was to check receipts.
Taking to social media, Bratislava Mayor Matúš Vallo criticised the recent raid.
"When I learned about the raid at the WAX2 club, I asked my colleagues to check on this. I will demand an explanation from the authorities, its reason and under what circumstances the motion for the raid was initiated," he wrote in the Facebook post, recalling similar demonstrations of force in 1990s Bratislava.
"Please, let's not turn the music clubs in our city into crime site, when the state is failing to simultaneously deal with crime in other places, to which our residents have been drawing attention a long time. It will not help the credibility of any participating police force and will unnecessarily traumatise people who, in good faith and with good intentions are attending clubs to have fun," he added.
