Slovakia:
Neo-Nazis terrorizing bar owned by anti-racist activist with impunity
Nitra, Slovakia, 29.1.2014 7:21, (ROMEA)
Neo-Nazis have been committing brutal
assaults in Nitra, Slovakia, so far with impunity. (Photo: Print Screen from video footage posted to the
website of the SME daily).
News server Sme.sk reports that right-wing
extremists have been terrorizing a bar frequented by students in the town of
Nitra, breaking the owner's leg and kicking two other people there into
unconsciousness during one incident. One of the attacks was captured on video
by a municipal security camera three months ago, but it is only now that an
indictment is on the horizon.
Attack
in the Mariatchi Bar
On a Saturday evening, just before
midnight, skinhead youth came to the Mariatchi Bar in the center of Nitra. They
provoked the customers and staff before asking to buy cigarettes.
When the staff refused, the skinheads began
to shout loudly and refused to leave even after the owner asked them to. The
customers pushed the right-wing extremists out of the club, but they returned
with reinforcements.
Radovan Richtárik, the owner of the bar,
went outside to stop them. "I wanted to tell them to let it go, but they
couldn't wait," he says.
The skinheads immediately began to beat up
both customers and Richtárik. Anyone unfortunate enough to fall to the ground
was kicked in the face without mercy and brutally stomped.
One neo-Nazi was jumping up and down on the
body of a man who was unconscious on the sidewalk. When a barmaid tried to
drive him away, the other assailants slapped her.
They
came from Valhalla
The October attack is not the only conflict
that neo-Nazis have kicked off in the bar. Right-wing extremists have opened up
their own business directly across the street called Walhala (Valhalla), which
is licensed as a members-only card club.
The skinheads meet at the club on
Saturdays, and Richtárik says there have been times when he had problems with
them on a weekly basis. They make threats, kick in doors, and smash windows.
These attacks on the bar are not random.
The neo-Nazis are aware of Richtárik as an activist with the People against
Racism (Lidé proti rasismu) initiative.
The regulars in Richtárik's bar are
students in particular. "People with dreadlocks also come here, and that
bothers [the skinheads]," he says.
The neo-Nazi attacks escalated on New
Year's Eve. "First they smashed in five windows here before
midnight," one customer recalls, "and around 3 AM they returned to
kick the doors in. [The owner] ran out after them with a camera. They saw him
photographing them and they began to beat him up, pushing him to the ground,
kicking and stomping him. I wanted to help him, but one of them grabbed me and
held me back. When I tried to get away, he ripped my coat."
The bar owner was hospitalized with a
broken leg and had to undergo an operation on New Year's Day. Police are
investigating the assaults but have not charged anyone with them yet.
The Slovak daily SME has seen the video
footage shot in October and says the attackers' faces are clearly visible in
it. "Police are working intensively to solve both cases," says
Regional Police spokesperson Renáta Čuháková, adding that the investigation of
the case from October will soon be concluded.
Assailants
linked to Regional Governor
Walhala, the members-only "gentlemen's
card club" in Nitra, has been in business since the fall of 2012. It is
open only on Saturday evenings, but not to the general public.
Richtárik says about 30 people usually
gather there on Saturdays, with numbers rising when birthday celebrations or
competitions are held there. The club members have formed a members-only group
on Facebook as well.
The profile photograph for that group is a
drawing of two skinheads shaking hands with the Slovak flag in the background.
One of them has an abbreviation for the international neo-Nazi network Combat
18 tattooed on his neck.
Four administrators take care of the
Facebook group. Three of them have previously run for parliament on behalf of
the LS-NS (People's Party - Our Slovakia) party chaired by Marian Kotleba, who
is now the Banská Bystrica Regional Governor.
The Walhala club Facebook group is also
being administered by Jakub Škrabák, currently the head of the fascist Slovak
Solidarity (Slovenská pospolitost) association, which Kotleba used to lead. A
political party of that same name was previously dissolved by the courts.
Škrabák is the only administrator of the
Facebook group not from Nitra. He ran for Kotleba's LS-NS in 2010 and 2012.
Administrators Anton Baťovský and Dušan
Sobolič have been activists for the National Resistance (Národní odpor) group;
Baťovský has the name of that organization tattooed on his back. Both were
candidates for Kotleba's party in 2010.
Neo-Nazis
in Nitra
There have been several other such attacks
in the town, such as one in 2008 where youth were attacked in front of the Old
Theater, and the militant neo-Nazi movement has established a branch of the
National Resistance network there. The neo-Nazis have been organizing an annual
"March against Drugs" in Nitra on the anniversary of the founding of
the Fascist wartime Slovak state, which collaborated with Nazi Germany.
fk, Sme.sk, translated by Gwendolyn Albert
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