Czech rightists march on Roma area

Mounted riot police clashed with right-wing demonstrators yesterday near a Roma community in the Czech Republic. (Michal Cizek/ AFP/ Getty Images)

LITVINOV, Czech Republic - More than 500 supporters of the Czech far-right Workers' Party clashed with police yesterday when they marched on a Roma suburb of the town of Litvinov.

At least 14 people were injured when the marchers hurled stones, firecrackers, and gas bombs at some 1,000 police in heavy riot gear in the industrial town 70 miles northwest of Prague, Czech news agency CTK reported.

Radical right-wing parties have not made any inroads into national politics in the past decade, but their sympathizers have repeatedly assaulted the mostly poor, unemployed members of the nation's Roma communities.

CTK reported that police arrested 15 protesters. Media said the police had reined in several hundred Roma residents, some armed with clubs, to prevent a direct clash.

The interior minister labeled the Workers' Party as extremist this year and the government is in the process of disbanding it.

REUTERS