The civic association People against Racism (Ľudia Proti Rasizmu) says it has information that initial reports describing a New Year's Eve incident which included a mass brawl between local Roma and non-Roma people in the town of Zlaté Moravce may have been inaccurate.
According to the initial reports, a group of Roma attacked and wounded several non-Roma, leaving seven people requiring hospital treatment. Now People against Racism says a witness has contacted the group claiming that in his address on New Year's Eve, local Mayor Peter Lednár made repeated racist comments about the need to protect what he called “the white race” in Zlaté Moravce from “parasites”. After the speech, two skinheads allegedly attacked Roma children, but the children’s parents arrived and chased the skinheads away. The witness said, as quoted by the SITA newswire, that another group of skinheads then emerged from a nearby bar and launched a verbal attack on the Roma, using racially-motivated insults. However, the skinheads later called the police, claiming they were being attacked; the Roma did not. The witness confirmed that the police did not intervene as, according to him, there was no-one to intervene against because after protecting their children the Roma had left.
Mayor Lednár sent an open letter to Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic complaining that the police had not intervened against the Roma. Over one hundred local Roma children did not come to school last week, after their parents said they feared possible skinhead attacks. Lipšic has promised to investigate the case.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
