Did the government stage an incident in which Czech men are accused of randomly attacking two Ukrainian women on the streets? No, that's not true: The police caught one of the attackers shortly after the incident and put him in custody. Also, there is no evidence that one of the victims allegedly "made a miraculous recovery," as claimed in posts circulating on social media, suggesting the whole incident was fake.
The claim appeared in a video published on TikTok on August 25, 2023, (archived here) with the following caption in Czech: "Is this a miraculous recovery? She was supposedly taken to the hospital with an open jaw fracture."
It continues:
This is fake news, Mr. Minister, a job carried out by BIS, to counter the mood after the attacks carried out by Ukrainians...
(Translations from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Aug 29 08:14:12 2023 UTC)
BIS, as referred to in the TikTok, is the Security Information Service, the Czech state intelligence agency. The images hint at an alleged "miraculous recovery" by one of the victims, who, according to the TikTok video, had supposedly suffered an open jaw fracture but seemed ok just a few days after the attack.
There is no evidence that the incident was "fake" or staged to sway the public opinion after two separate cases of Ukrainian men raping Czech women earlier in August, 2023, as suggested in the TikTok.
The attack referred to in the TikTok happened in Plasy, a small town near Pilsen, in the western part of the Czech Republic, on August 13, 2023, as reported by Novinky.cz news website on August 23, 2023. Three Czech men, the news site reported, assaulted two Ukrainian women, allegedly randomly, on a street. The Czech police confirmed on its Twitter account the same day that they were investigating the case and that they already knew the identity of one of the attackers.
Two women were physically assaulted by "possibly three attackers and one suspect was taken into custody," police spokeswoman Pavla Buresova told Lead Stories in a telephone conversation on August 29, 2023. The investigation is still ongoing as there may be two more suspects. The police could not comment or give details on the injuries suffered by the victims, Buresova added. They would also not comment on the nationalities of either the victims or the attackers. Media reports on the incident can be found here and here.
The TikTok post claims that one victim of the attack in Plasy suffered an "open jaw fracture," showing an image from a CNN Prima News report, filmed days after the attack, to suggest a "miracoulus recovery" for the victim. There are no official statements from either the police, or medical authorities, specifying the injuries suffered by the two women. The Czech news website Seznam Zpravy cites a medical report, obtained by the publication, stating that one woman had a broken jaw and nose. In any case, the image shown in the TikTok would not prove that the woman's recovery was "miraculous."
The attack took place in the same region where, according to news reports, a young Ukrainian man had raped and tried to kill a young Czech girl earlier in August 2023. The Czech media reported on the case here and here.
