Hate Crime Report Card - Czech Republic

I. Systems of Monitoring and Reporting

What Data is Collected?

The Interior Ministry and the Justice Ministry regularly report on bias-motivated violence and crime in the Czech Republic. The Security Police Department of the Interior Ministry publishes an annual report on the issue of extremism in the Czech Republic, including data on the incidence of a wide range of crimes that fall with the category of "extremism." These include both violent and nonviolent crimes motivated by hatred. [1]

Crimes are registered and reported as violations of particular articles of the criminal code. In 2006 the Interior Ministry registered 248 crimes with an extremist context (as compared with 253 crimes in 2005), accounting for 0.07 percent of total criminal activities recorded in 2006.

In 2006, there were 46 crimes of violence against a group of people or an individual (registered under Section 196 of the criminal code). There were 15 further instances of intentional serious physical injury motivated by bias (registered under section 221 and 222 of the Criminal Code). No murders or attempted homicides with a racial or other bias context were reported in 2006.[2]

Prosecution Data 

The Prosecution Service also contributes to the annual report on extremism. In 2006, 242 persons (as compared with 269 persons in 2005) were prosecuted for extremist crimes. Police resolved 196 of these crimes, or 79 percent of the cases of extremism recorded by the police.[3] The report also includes statistics on the dismissal of charges and the outcome of other cases handled by the Prosecution Service.

What Does the Data Say about the Bias Motivations and/or Victim Groups?

The data itself is not disaggregated to reveal the characteristics of the victims of hate crimes, although the report does indicate that Roma were the principal targets of attacks on persons and that in two cases foreign nationals were assaulted (a citizen of Guinea and a citizen of the Slovak Republic).[4]

The Interior Ministry also reports on the motivations of hate crimes, referring to three broad categories: right-wing extremism, antisemitism, and those with an anti-Islamic motivation. In 2006, crimes motivated by right-wing extremism constituted the largest percentage of extremist crimes. No serious antisemitic attacks on persons were reported, although there were 14 registered crimes with an antisemitic context, including the desecration of Jewish cemeteries.[5] Police recorded just three anti-Islamic crimes in 2006.[6]

II. The Framework of Criminal Law

Legislation on Bias-motivated Violence:

Bias-motivated Violent Crimes as Specific Offenses	Bias as an Express General Aggravating Factor	Bias as an Aggravating Factor in Specific Common Crimes
X		X

Bias Types Covered by Provisions on Aggravating Circumstances:

Race/National Origin/Ethnicity	Religion	Sexual Orientation	Gender	Disability	Other
X	X				X

The Criminal Code of the Czech Republic defines specific bias-motivated acts as separate offenses and contains provisions by which racist or other bias motivations can be taken into consideration as a specific aggravating circumstance that judges are required to take into account in sentencing. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance's (ECRI's) second report on the Czech Republic, in June 1999, notes that amendments to the Criminal Code in 1995 that increased sentences for certain crimes with racial motives followed a major increase in racially motivated violence, "affecting Roma/Gypsies particularly but also other visible minorities." [7]

Bias-motivated Violent Crime as a Specific Offense

Article 196 creates a separate offense punishing bias-motivated violence against a group of inhabitants or individuals. Article 196(2) provides for punishments ranging from six months to three years imprisonment for "using violence against a group of inhabitants or against an individual, or to threaten them with death, injury to health or infliction of serious injury because of their political conviction, nationality, race, creed, or lack of creed."

Bias as an Aggravating Factor in Specific Common Crimes

There are also a number of crimes in which a bias motivation can be considered an aggravating factor. In article 219 (Murder), article 221 (Injury to health), article 222 (Serious injury to health) and article 235 (Extortion), penalties are enhanced when the act is committed against an individual because of race, nationality, political conviction, creed, or lack of creed.[8]

As reported by ECRI in its Third Report on the Czech Republic, some efforts have been made by the Czech authorities to better implement this legislation, including the creation of a Commission for Combating Extremism, Racism, and Xenophobia, which includes relevant state actors and acts as an advisory body to the interior minister, collecting information and developing a coordinated approach by the state administrative bodies to the struggle against extremism, racism, and xenophobia.[9] Most recently, in October 2006, the Supreme State Prosecutor's General Instruction No. 4/2006, on the punishment of criminal offenses motivated by racial, national, political, or religious hatred, made these crimes a priority for public prosecutors.[10]

ECRI notes however that the "implementation of criminal law provisions devoted to racially-motivated crimes remains inadequate," and that "reports of racially-motivated violence continue unabated."[11] This conclusion is shared by the League for Human Rights, a Czech human rights organization in its report in February 2007 to the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for the Czech Republic. This observes that "cases of racially motivated violence persist. Unfortunately, the cases are not always vigorously pursued by the relevant authorities. Sometimes the police play down the gravity of the violence."[12]

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[1] Interior Ministry, "Information on the Issue of Extremism in the Czech Republic in 2006," Prague, 2007; available at http://www.mvcr.cz/dokument/2007/extrem06en.pdf (accessed on August 29, 2007). Among the criminal code offenses which are included within the framework of "extremism" are: infringement of copyright (article 152); assault against a public official (article 155); violence against a group of people or individual (article 196); dangerous threats (article 197a); defamation of an ethnic group, race or conviction (article 198); inciting hatred (article 198a); hooliganism (article 202); injury to health (article 221); serious injury to health (article 222); extortion (article 235); theft (article 247); support and propagation of extremist movements (article 260, 261).

[2] Interior Ministry, "Information on the Issue of Extremism in the Czech Republic In 2006," Prague, 2007, page 7.

[3] Interior Ministry, "Information on the Issue of Extremism in The Czech Republic in 2006," Prague, 2007.

[4] Interior Ministry, "Information on the Issue of Extremism in The Czech Republic in 2006," Prague, 2007, pp. 9-10.

[5] Six of these crimes were violations of Sec. 261 of the Criminal Code (support and propagation of movements suppressing human rights and freedoms) while four other crimes fell under Sec. 198(1)(a) of the Criminal Code (defamation of a nation, ethnic group, race or  conviction). Cases included the painting of swastikas and other symbols propagating fascism in Ostrava (in the North Moravian Region) in March 2006, damaging eight graves in the Jewish cemetery in Prague 3 (where an unknown offender stole copper and bronze embossing from tomb slabs (October 2003)), and damaging graves in the Jewish cemetery in Zamberk (in the East Bohemian Region) by displacing approximately 55 marble, granite, and sandstone tombstones, also in October 2006.

[6] Interior Ministry, "Information on the Issue of Extremism in The Czech Republic in 2006," Prague, 2007.

[7] ECRI, "Second Report on the Czech Republic," adopted on June 18, 1999, and made public on March 21, 2000, para. 7.

[8] Criminal Code of the Czech Republic, available at: http://spcp.prf.cuni.cz/lex/140-61.htm.

[9] ECRI, "Third Report on the Czech Republic," adopted on December 5, 2003, and made public on June 8, 2004, para. 14.

[10] Interior Ministry, "Information on the Issue of Extremism in the Czech Republic in 2006," Section 3.3.2 Supreme State Prosecutor's Office, p. 28. 

[11] ECRI, "Third Report on the Czech Republic," para. 16.

[12] League for Human Rights, Shadow Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for the Czech Republic, February 5, 2007, available at: http://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/LIGA.pdf.