Prague, Jan 30 (CTK) – Tomas Sevcik, a pizzeria owner, is the first Czech to be fined for discriminating against Muslims as he posted on Facebook a picture saying he does not cook for immigrants in September 2015 and then added the caption Stop Islam, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Monday.
The Czech Trade Inspection Authority (COI) has twice fined him, 25,000 crowns two years ago and now 60,000 crowns.
“I am no Nazi. Since I was 18, I worked in Italy. The only thing I wanted to do was to warn of the situation in which Italy is now, being full of illegal migrants,” Sevcik, a businessman from the small town of Hrusovany, south Moravia, is quoted as saying.
“Thousands of others are flowing to Europe, while everyone pretends that nothing is going on,” he added.
His Grand Italia establishment was fined because he breached the law on the protection of consumers, the COI argues.
Sevcik says he will certainly appeal the decision that has not yet taken effect.
In fact, he claims that it has never happened that he would not serve anyone in his restaurant.
English-speaking people have several times come to the pizzeria. Sevcik says they were agents-provocateurs sent by the COI, MfD writes.
“Still I served them all,” Sevcik said.
Sevcik said since he disagreed with the fines, he posted his slogan again last year.
He said he knew pretty well how much Italians were suffering from the influx of migrants and did not feel well in their own country.
“I have been going there on business for eleven years. I have lots of friends there, no teenagers, but adult guys, fathers of families,” Sevcik said.
“If I had not had a seven-year old boy here to provide joint custody him, I would have emigrated to Australia or New Zealand long ago because this cannot end well,” he added.
He dismissed the notion that he was a racist or neo-Nazi. He stressed that he was just a father fearing for the future of his son.
He said his fear for the future was stronger than that of most people around him.
So far, he has spent 100,000 crowns on his struggle with the authorities, MfD writes.
However, he does not regret this, it adds.
“I have always had an argument with my daddy while watching television. I asked him why he was not doing anything with the migrant crisis. Doing something is better than nothing,” Sevcik said.
“When my case was set in motion, it was covered by German, Austrian and Italian papers,” he added.
In Hrusovany with its roughly 3,000 population, Sevcik is considered a hero, MfD writes.
The locals are giving him advice what to do next. They say he should post online the slogan “we only cook pork” in an obvious references to the Muslims, MfD writes.
