At the end of May, Russian media reported that in Prague, the owners of some stores prohibited entry to Ukrainians due to increased cases of theft. This ban is allegedly confirmed by a couple of photographs. We checked whether the Czechs hung such prohibitory signs.
The media began to write en masse about the ban on Ukrainians entering Prague stores on May 26. The publications referred to posts from social networks with two photographs. These photographs show two shop windows of clothing stores, on which there are supposedly signs in the colors of the Ukrainian flag and with the inscription “Ukrainians are blocked from entering” (“Ukrainians are prohibited from entering”). At the same time, sellers and boutique managers allegedly admitted that they were tired of the frequent thefts and impudent behavior of refugees, so they were forced to take such radical measures.
So, these provocative prohibitory signs were written about on Internet resources EADaily, "Expert", "Public News Service", "Utro.ru", "Federal News Agency" And "Pravda.ru", on newspaper websites "Komsomolskaya Pravda" And "Moskovsky Komsomolets", as well as TV channels "Ren-TV", "Tsargrad" And "360°". Posts with photos of signs are available in Telegram channels "War on fakes" (153,000 views) and Rogandar News (55,000), and also in such public pages on VKontakte as “Reports from the New Russia militia” (23,000), "Rhinoceros" (79,000), "News from the President of Russia!" (14,000) and "Russia vs NATO" (15,000).
The earliest publication of photographs of stores with anti-Ukrainian signs that we could find was appeared in the Telegram channel “Ukropsky Fresh” (917,000 views) on May 25 at 22:58 Moscow time. It states that the photo was sent by subscriber Alexander M.
On the morning of May 26, the Czech English-language publication Prague Morning also spoke about the ban. by posting photos of shop windows with signs on your social networks. The recordings were accompanied by the question: “Have you noticed similar signs in the city? We're a little shocked." Users were outraged that Ukrainians were banned from visiting stores and called such actions unacceptable. Some even wrote insults and called for a boycott of these stores.
Then Czech journalists also became interested in Prague Morning's publications. For example, a photojournalist for the Deník newspaper visited one of the stores just a few tens of minutes after the posts came out, but did not find any signs about Ukrainians on the window. According to the surprised boutique seller, they never posted a sign “Ukrainians are not allowed in.”
Marcela Abdel Fattakhova, the owner of a hosiery store on Sokolovskaya Street in the Karlin district, reacted in the same way. “I don’t do anything else now. Clients and acquaintances contact us, and I have to explain to everyone that this is a fake photo. We've never had a sign like this here. I'm not interested in politics and I certainly don't want to ban anyone from entering the store." told she wrote to the Prague newspaper and added that she wanted to contact the publishers of Prague Morning for clarification. Portal correspondents iDNES.cz she said she sympathized with the refugees, their store was being unfairly criticized and her husband would go to the police because of the reputational damage.
And Deník employees themselves contacted the editorial office of Prague Morning to find out where these pictures came from. Reported, that they never revealed the origin of the photos, but insisted that they were genuine. Subsequent questions about whether the editors checked the presence of the plaque themselves were not answered. However, the posts were deleted from Prague Morning’s social networks. Later one of the users indicated that the publication should have issued a refutation. Then on Twitter Prague Morning appeared new post: “We apologize. One of our readers sent these photos to us on Facebook this morning*. He said he made them yesterday afternoon and we believed him. This is our mistake." In another tweet addedthat, according to this reader's profile, he is an Englishman living in Prague.
On the afternoon of May 26th refutation appeared and on Facebook of the Punčocháče Karlín store. They posted a photo of the display case and signed it as follows: “This is reality! The post on the Prague Morning page was fake and has now been deleted. Everyone is welcome here." Let us note that in the place where the prohibitory sign was supposedly located, there was a white piece of paper with the address of the online store. Moreover, judging by the reflection of the street, it is glued behind the glass.
Your investigation spent and the Czech site Seznam Zpráv. There they found out that the second store is located in the same area as the aforementioned tights store. According to the mother of the owner of the fashion boutique Inside, Lenka Vrzalova, there was no sign hanging in the store, there was only an empty board in this place. She also said that she would consult with her daughter about whether to contact the police, although the portal iDNES.cz admitted that she didn’t see the point in this. Journalists Seznam Zpráv talked and with Marcela Abdel Fattakhova, who once again confirmed that she had nothing to do with the sign: “This makes me very angry, this is human stupidity.” Fattakhova added that she doesn’t know why she would put up such a sign if she was just selling tights.
The Seznam Zpráv website also contains a comment from a representative of the Czech Trade Inspectorate. He stated, that if the owner prohibits entry to a certain group of people, be they Slovaks, Germans or Ukrainians, then he is violating the prohibition of discrimination. In this case, he faces a fine of up to CZK 3 million in accordance with the Consumer Protection Act. According to the message iDNES.cz on May 26, a police spokeswoman said that law enforcement was aware of the incident, but at that time the victims had not yet filed formal statements.
In addition to journalistic investigations, you can find many comments and photos of shops from local residents on the Internet. According to them, they, too, have never seen such prohibitory signs on these stores. For example, Pikabu user Icizinec wrote that on May 26 he personally went to these stores (there are only about 100 m between them) and did not see any signs. On May 27 he published photo of both facades without anti-Ukrainian signs.
Based on the words of store owners and employees, as well as local residents, we can conclude that Ukrainians were not prohibited from entering. Some users suggested that someone had quietly attached the signs, quickly photographed them, and then removed them. But, most likely, ordinary photomontage took place, and a couple of facts speak in favor of this version. Firstly, according to the data iDNES.cz, the place on the glass where the sign was supposedly glued is covered with dust. So it doesn't look like there's been anything there lately. Secondly, in the photo you can see that the prohibitory sign has a reflection of the car, that is, it was allegedly glued behind the glass. But there is already a white piece of paper hanging there indicating the site, so first it would have to be removed and then put back up. It would hardly have been possible to do this unnoticed.
*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Cover photo: Prague Morning
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