• What is the dialogue "Have they caught them yet? " about?

The basic question which our heroes are trying to answer in the dialogue is the possibility of punishing racist violence and possible protection against it. They are confronted with two approaches – the official route and self-defence, which is what Daniel advocates. In the following text, we examine both forms.

• What is...?

Criminal act: Unlawful conduct, the character of which is described in detail in the Criminal Code, the job of which is also to specify what punishment is to be applied.

Body of a crime: The set of facts which define individual types of criminal acts, i.e. the concretisation of the conduct of the perpetrator.

Aggrieved party: The party which suffered material or non-material detriment as a result of the criminal act, and for which reason is granted certain rights in criminal proceedings (to inspect files, to request compensation for damage within the framework of collateral proceedings, etc.). The aggrieved party is actually the victim of a criminal act with a procedural status deriving therefrom.

• Topic

The Czech Republic belongs to an international community which has undertaken to recognise human rights, which, inter alia, it does by accepting the obligations enshrined in international treaties. These obligations include the protection of minorities (ethnic, racial, national, etc.) against discrimination, both violent, i.e. against racist attacks, and non-violent, e.g. discrimination in the sphere of services, on the jobs market, etc. These obligations derive from the Treaty on the Removal of Forms of Racial Discrimination of the Framework Convention on the Protection of Minorities.
It is clear that individuals cannot be protected against becoming victims of a racist attack. The contents of the obligation are therefore to establish such acts as being against the law and to condemn them. The Czech Republic meets this obligation by means of criminal law, which includes the punishment of racially-motivated criminal acts.
The Criminal Act punishes the following criminal acts relating to racism. The first criminal acts have a special relationship to racism, while the rest are criminal acts which might, but do not necessarily have a racist subtext.
Criminal acts with a special connection to racism:

Section 196
Violence against a group of citizens and against an individual
Whoever threatens a group of citizens with death, grievous bodily harm or causes damage of a considerable extent, will be imprisoned for up to one year.
Whoever uses violence against a group of citizens or an individual or threatens them with death, grievous bodily harm or causes damage of a considerable extent because of their political convictions, nationality, race, religion or because they are not religious, will be imprisoned for six months to three years.
Whoever conspires to commit such acts shall be punished in the same way as in paragraph 2.

The basis of this criminal act is threatening a group of people with death, grievous bodily harm or causing damage exceeding a sum of CZK 5,000, or the use of violence against this group of people for reason of their political convictions, nationality, membership in an ethnic group, race, religion or because they do not have a religion.

The provisions of this paragraph provide protection of the rights and freedoms established by constitutional law (specifically by the Deed of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms) under criminal law.

Section 198
Defamation of a nation, race and conviction
Whoever defames in public a nation, its language or an ethnic group or a race, or defames a group of the citizens of the republic for their political convictions, religion, or because they do not have a religion, will be imprisoned for up to two years
A perpetrator will be imprisoned for up to three years if they commit the act specified in paragraph I with at least two other people.

The body of a crime is thus met when a perpetrator publicly (i.e. in the press, on film, etc., or verbally in front of more than two persons present at the same time) defames a nationality, its language, some ethnic group or race, or group of citizens of the republic for their political persuasion, religion or because they are without religion.

Section 198a
Incitement to hatred of a group of persons or the restriction of their rights and freedoms
Whoever publicly incites hatred of a nation, an ethnic group, race, religion or class of another group of persons, or the restriction of the rights and freedoms of the members thereof, will be imprisoned for up to two years.
Whoever conspires to commit such acts shall be punished in the same way as in paragraph 1.

This criminal act comprises the public (i.e. in the presence of two persons simultaneously present) incitement to hatred of a nationality, ethnic group, race, religion, class, or other group or persons, or the restriction of the rights and freedoms of the members thereof. It punishes more harshly such incitement which is committed by the press, film, radio, television, publicly-accessible computer networks or other similarly functioning media. It is also strict in its treatment of a perpetrator who actively participates in the activities of groups, organisations or federations which espouse discrimination, violence or racial, ethnic or religious hatred.

Section 259
Genocide
Whoever deliberately destroys, fully or partially, any national, ethnic, racial or religious group or puts the members of such a group under such life conditions which are intended to bring about their complete or partial physical destruction, or takes measures leading to the prevention of children being born to such a group, or violently removes the children from one such group and places them with another, or causes the members of such a group grievous bodily harm or death, will be imprisoned for twelve or fifteen years or given an exceptional punishment.
Anyone participating in the crime specified in paragraph 1 will be punished similarly.

The basis of this criminal act is the physical liquidation of human beings – members of a certain national, ethnic, racial or religious group, not only directly, but also indirectly, by placing them under such life conditions which lead as a consequence to their liquidation. This involves the incorporation of the concrete form of international obligations into the legislation of the Czech Republic. This provision assumes that it is not in the power of an individual to liquidate a group of people, for which reason complicity is adjudged more harshly than in the case of other criminal acts, and accomplices will receive the same punishment as the perpetrator.

Section 260
Support and publicity for movements working toward the suppression of the rights and freedoms of citizens
Whoever supports or publicises a movement which demonstrably wishes to suppress the rights and freedoms of citizens or espouses national, racial, religious or class hatred or hatred of another group of persons will be imprisoned for one to five years.
A perpetrator will be imprisoned for three to eight years if they commit the crime specified in paragraph 1 using the press, film, radio, television or other similarly effective form, if they commit such an act as a member of an organised group, and if they committee such an act when there is a threat to the state or in time of war.

Section 261
Whoever publicly displays sympathy to the movements specified in section 260 will be imprisoned for six months to three years.

Section 261a
Whoever publicly denies, throws into doubt, approves or attempts to justify Nazi or communist genocides or other crimes of the Nazis or Communists against mankind will be imprisoned for six months to three years.

The basis of all three provisions cited is the protection of the rights of persons of all nationalities, ethnicities, races and classes. These provisions have strong historical links to the sad experience of humankind with fascism and Communism, and to a certain extent their subject is also the prevention of the dissemination or return of these inhuman movements – for this reason they punish conduct such as denying the crimes of the Nazis or Communists, throwing them into doubt, approving them or justifying them.

Section 263a
Persecution of the population
(1) Whoever in time of war applies apartheid or commits another inhuman act ensuing from racial discrimination, or terrorises the unarmed civilian population with violence or the threat of violence, will be imprisoned for three to ten years.
(2) The same punishment will be meted out to someone who, in time of war,
a) destroys or seriously disturbs the source of basic life requirements of the civilian population in an occupied territory or adjacent zone or wilfully refuses to provide the population the assistance essential for survival,
b) unreasonably delays the return of the civilian population or prisoners of war ,
c) unreasonably displaces the civilian population of an occupied territory,
d) settles the population of their own country in an occupied territory, or
e) wilfully prevents the civilian population or prisoners of war from deciding on their guilt in impartial court proceedings.
(3) A perpetrator will be punished for eight to fifteen years or will receive an exceptional punishment if they cause by virtue of the act specified in paragraph 1 or 2 grievous bodily harm, death, or some other especially serious consequence.

The basis of this provision of the Criminal Code is the protection of life, health and the dignity of persons in military conflicts in the civilian population, i.e. those who are not immediate participants in military operations. In essence, this involves punishment of a breach of international treaties on conduct in war.

Criminal acts could also be mentioned in which the motive is racial intolerance punished by an increased sentence, i.e. acts which we know in their general form without racist motives:

Murder (section 219 paragraph 1, 2g)
The basis of the criminal act of murder is deliberately causing the death of another person. The perpetrator is punished more harshly if they murdered another person because of that person’s race, membership in an ethnic group, nationality, political convictions, religion, or because they are without religion.

Injury to health (section 221 - 224)
The basis of these criminal acts is injury done to health, in which a perpetrator receives a harsher sentence if their motive was the race, membership in an ethnic group, nationality, political persuasion, or religion of the victim, or the fact that they were without religion. A more serious form of injury to health is “grievous bodily harm”, which refers to disfigurement, the loss or substantial reduction of work ability, loss of the use of a limb, the loss or substantial weakening of the function of a sense organ, damage to an important organ, mutilation, causing miscarriage or the death of a foetus, extreme suffering, or a health defect which persists over a longer period of time.

Blackmail (section 235 paragraph 1, 2f)
This criminal act punishes conduct on the part of the perpetrator in which through violence, the threat of violence or the threat of some other severe detriment, they force someone to do something, not to do something, or to suffer something. The sentence is again harsher if the victim was selected on the basis of their being a member of another race, ethnic group or nationality, different political persuasion, religion, or because they were without religion.

Damage to the property of another (section 257 paragraph 1, 2b)
The basis of this criminal act is the destruction, damage or rendering unusable the property of another, if damage is thus caused to the property of the victim in excess of CZK 5,000. If this criminal damage was done to the property of another because of that party’s race, nationality, political persuasion, religion, or because they are without religion, the perpetrator receives a more severe sentence.

It is not possible to restrict protection against violent discrimination only to protection under criminal law – this protection is also offered by the Act on Misdeeds.
Misdeeds are defined by Act 200/1990 Coll., on misdeeds, as amended. Misdeeds involve unlawful conduct which is explicitly designated as a misdeed by this or another legal regulation.

Concrete protection against violent discrimination is set forth within the framework of the Act in section 49:
“Misdeeds against civil coexistence
(1) A misdeed is perpetrated by someone who
a) causes injury to the honour of another by insulting them or ridiculing them,
b) injures the health of another through negligence,
c) deliberately disturbs civil coexistence through threatening injury to health, through minor injury to health, through untrue accusations of misdeeds, wilful deeds or other gross conduct,
d) restricts or prevents a member of a national minority from exercising the rights of members of national minorities,
e) causes detriment to another for reason of their membership in a national minority or ethnic origin, race, colour of skin, gender, sexual orientation, language, faith or religion, political or other opinions, members or activities in political parties or movements, trade unions or other federations, social origin, property, family, state of health or marital status.
(2) A fine can be imposed for a misdeed as detailed in paragraph 1 a) of up to CZK 1,000, for a misdeed as detailed in paragraph 1 b) and c) of up to CZK 3,000 and for a misdeed as detailed in paragraph 1 d) and e) a fine of up to CZK 5,000.”

Practical application of the law
If an attack takes place of the type outlined in the dialogue, it should be reported to the appropriate bodies, which are the specialist bodies active in criminal proceedings. This refers to the police, the public prosecution office, and the courts. The criminal report can be submitted verbally or in writing. In the case in question, the fastest way is to ring the police by mobile telephone (which it seems everybody aged between 12 and 60 has in the CR) and to briefly inform them what has taken place. The police will either come to the scene of the crime or will let the person making the report know where to go and when, i.e. an immediate response or an appointment if it suffices to make a statement on the following day. If there has been a physical attack, it is appropriate and sometimes essential, depending on the circumstances, to seek medical treatment and to include the medical report in the police file.
The police will begin to investigate what actually happened, and their activities will focus on answering the three basic questions as required by criminal law. These questions are as follows:
Did the act in question actually take place?
Is the act in question a criminal act?
Did a concrete party commit the act?

The first question, though it seems nonsensical, means ascertaining whether the sequence of events genuinely took place as described in the testimony. The police may, for instance, decide that the act in question, e.g. support and publicity for a movement for the suppression of rights and freedoms by Mr. XZ in the local pub, when he requested the removal of Roma people from Czech society, did not actually take place, since he was only citing the election programme of the Republican party, regarding which he expressed his disagreement, which the person reporting the act did not hear, because they were already on their way to the local police station.
However, if the police decide that the act in question took place, it will ascertain whether it meets the criteria of a criminal act. In this phase, there are often acts which are originally investigated as criminal acts but redefined as misdeeds. The aggrieved party and non-governmental organisations frequently disagree with this, since they believe that racism is such a fundamental problem that all acts connected with it should be criminal acts.
The third phase involves demonstrating to a specific party that it was they that committed the act. This party is referred to as the suspect during the course of the investigation. Once the evidence unambiguously pointing to their guilt has been gathered and a statement released by the police on the initiation of criminal proceedings against this person, from this point on this party is referred to as the accused. The police then close their file and hand it over to the state prosecution office which, after studying its contents, either returns it for further investigation or, on the basis of its contents, compiles a formal charge or suspends the criminal proceedings being held against the accused. Let us assume that the state prosecution office compiles a formal charge. The accused now becomes the defendant and their case goes to court, where the court decides on their guilt and punishment. The court bases its judgement on the proposal submitted by the state prosecutor, but may undertake is own evidential proceedings. After the sentence is announced, the defendant and the state prosecutor have eight days to submit an appeal against the verdict for any reasons (e.g. the defendant will clearly claim that they are innocent, the state prosecutor may not be content that the court did not grant their request and imposed a lower sentence). The injured party can also, under certain conditions, appeal against the verdict within the same deadline, but only against that part of the verdict under which the defendant was instructed to compensate the injured party for material detriment. This principle is that the state prosecutor acts before the court, which is the only body which may decide on guilt and punishment, on behalf of society, and therefore the aggrieved party too. This means that it is found of the perpetrator that by committing a criminal act which is designated as unlawful conduct by the Criminal Code, they damaged society as a whole. Society’s interest in convicting the perpetrator is then defended before the courts by the state prosecutor, and the injured party is “out of the picture”, and may only enforce a right to the detriment to health or property demonstrably suffered. This principle is often not understood by survivors (not only in the case of racist criminal acts), and the law is often called unjust. It often seems to them that the perpetrator has got off with a sentence which is too low, and they are frustrated by the impossibility of officially expressing their desire for a higher punishment within the framework of criminal proceedings.
If neither the state prosecutor nor the defendant appeals, the verdict becomes legitimate after the expiry of the deadline for appeals, when the defendant becomes the convicted party.
If an appeal is lodged (by one or both parties entitled to do so), the case goes to the appeals court. If the criminal case was first examined by a district court in the first instance (the jurisdiction of courts is stipulated by the Rules of Criminal Procedure; put simply, the regional courts act on the first level of criminal cases if the law allows for imprisonment of a lower level of five years), the court of appeals is the regional court. If the regional court was the court of first instance, the appeals court will be the high court.
The appeals court again examines the case and either returns it to the court of first instance for new deliberations, or either overturns the verdict or confirms it.

There also exist cases in which it is possible to submit special remedial measures against a legitimate verdict. Specifically, this involves an extraordinary appeal, renewal of the proceedings, and a complaint for a breach of law. The Rules of Criminal Procedure contain the appurtenances and conditions for application of these measures.
After the sentence has been announced, the punishment begins. If imprisonment was imposed, the perpetrator goes to prison.

There are no details of the attack in the dialogue. However, from the way the conduct of the attackers was described, I would qualify this attack as a misdeed.

Justified self-defence
Racially-motivated criminal acts, as other criminal acts, are not always successfully investigated and their perpetrators not always punished. As a result, there is often an attempt made within the communities of the victims to take justice or protection against a threat into their own hands.
Daniel decided on such a course of action by taking up boxing. If he were to be attacked, he would be able to defend himself. Although he would commit violence against another, this would not be a criminal act since it would meet the conditions of justified self-defence (as defined by the Criminal Code). Justifiable self-defence is involved if a person averts the threat of an attack through their conduct. The boundary for justified self-defence is that averting the attack may not be evidently disproportional in character. An example of this would be a case in which a skinhead shouted out a comment, and Daniel then shot him.

• Stories and examples

Unfortunately, there have been dozens of racially-motivated murders in the Czech Republic, a list of which and a description of the acts can be found, for instance, at http://www.osf.cz/romove/prisliozivot.htm

• Sources

References:

Trestní zákon (zákon č.140/1961 Sb. ve znění pozdějších předpisů).

Trestní řád (zákon č. 141/1961 Sb. ve znění pozdějších předpisů).

Zákon o přestupcích (zákon č. 200/1990 Sb. ve znění pozdějších předpisů).

Mezinárodní úmluva o odstranění všech forem rasové diskriminace ( zákon č. 95/1974 Sb.).

Rámcová úmluva o ochraně národnostních menšin (zákon č. 96/1998 Sb.)