Czech riot police have detained more than 20 anarchists and skinheads after the two groups clashed during May Day demonstrations in the center of the Czech Republic capital.
After the police separated the groups last Saturday, some 300 skinheads marched through the city, chanting slogans such as “Zionists Out” and “Arbeit Macht Frei” — or “Work Will Make You Free,” the slogan posted over the gates of some Nazi concentration camps.
“I’m very unhappy with how the police dealt with the whole situation, the way they protected the skins and not the anarchists,” said Milos Pojar, director of the Education and Culture Center of the Prague Jewish Museum. “I was disgusted.”
Representatives of the anti-racist Movement of Civic Solidarity and Tolerance said they had videotaped evidence of skinheads giving Nazi salutes and wearing fascist insignia.
They said they planned to file legal complaints against some of the demonstrators.
Promoting racism or anti-Semitism is a crime in the Czech Republic.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
