Czech Anarchists Set Police Cars Aflame in Response to "Operation Fenix"
Anarchists have provided vehement responses to police crack-downs on their brethren in the Czech Republic, including setting fire to police cars in the country and making implied threats for further retaliation. The attacks have been explained as a countermeasures to "Operation Fenix," a campaign by Czech police officers targeting various anarchist organizations.
Anarchist and anarchist-affiliated websites described Operation Fenix, reportedly initiated by the Counter Organized Crime Unit of the Czech police (UOOZ) in April of this year, as driving arrests and "intimidation" by police, among other tactics. Since then, anarchist communities have rallied against the police's initiative, characterizing it as "repressions against" the country's anarchist movement(s).
On July 4, 2015, the Wild Heart Cell of the Network of Revolutionary Cells (SRB) set fire to a police car next to the Praha-Bunby police station in Prague. The group warned: "We will not tolerate such violence by the state and we will fight against it!"
Anarchists: "So far we have only used fire to ignite cars. Next time however will not be the same."
Only three days before, a different cell within the SRB set a police car aflame. Those claiming the attack stated it to be in solidarity with an anarchist named Alesem Kocim, who was arrested for illegal weapons possession by authorities as part of Operation Fenix. The communique claimed:
Alešem Kočím is an anarchist who disrupted the state's monopoly on the use of weapons by being armed. SRB supports such a stance. While Alešem is in the hands of the enemy this limits his potential for future struggle but we do not intend to accept this situation. Incendiary words, fire, weapons and explosives - it's all part of our struggle.
The message ended by warning, "So far we have only used fire to ignite cars. Next time however will not be the same."
Arrests made as part of Operation Fenix have prompted the support of anarchists across the globe, who have encouraged decentralized assistance efforts via information spreading, demonstrations, and financing toward layers, and also announced benefit events.
