And I really hope the attackers will get the life sentences they fully deserve.

I can't speak for other European countries, but here in the Czech Republic the situation with far-right extremists isn't as bad as the attack or the CNN article would suggest. There aren't that many of them, though they try to make up for that by being violent, loud and provocative, so that they would get the attention they want.

There is even a strong sentiment against the neo-Nazis in the society. It culminated some 2 or 3 years ago during one of their demonstrations (they really like to organize them) in Prague. There were about 500 of neo-Nazis (that's the usual number during these demonstrations), and there were several peaceful gatherings throughout the Prague attended by quite a lot of people who wanted to show that the majority is against the neo-Nazis' views and ideas. The neo-Nazi group was also shadowed all along their march by a not so peaceful group of anti-neo-Nazi activists and far-leftists who were roughly three times their number. The police mostly kept them apart, but there were some incidents.

This created a sentiment among the neo-Nazi that they are being persecuted, and they started to organize themselves better, they hired lawyers so that they wouldn't be "deprived" of any of their rights, they founded the now banned Workers' Party, and tried to bring more people to their "cause" by positioning themselves as victims, as those who are unjustly persecuted, as well as their usual racist and negative sentiments crap, and I think that at least some of them started to be more aggressive. In my opinion, this is what led to the attack in Vítkov.

The attack created a new wave of anti-neo-Nazi sentiments in the Czech Republic, and the government is undertaking a more active anti-neo-Nazi policy. More neo-Nazis are being arrested than before, and the Workers' Party was banned, though they were prepared for that and had a "backup" party, so they could participate in the elections in the end, however they didn't get many votes.

A much bigger problem than far-right extremism are passive racism and prejudices against the Romas that are pervading the society. There are also other minorities in the Czech Republic, for example a strong Vietnamese minority, however none of them are viewed as problematic or has to face such prejudices as the Romas. The issue lies on both sides, as you say many Romas cause problems, although not to the extent you say they did in Russia in the 90s.

The sense that they live off subsidies is very strong here. And the fact is that those that do that really know the system. They know virtually every social benefit they can apply for, and they quite often use various tricks or scams or whatever to get more money from the state. I'd say that many of them know more about it than some of the state employers who are responsible for social benefits, and they certainly know much more than a regular person who goes to apply for the subsidies for the first time, for example an unemployed single mom with two children.

Thievery is also quite common among some of the Romas. I have personally seen Roma women hanging out in front of a shopping mall asking people what they want to buy and then offering to steal it and sell it to them for half the price. Or once when I was on a bus I overheard a group of Romas talking about what is the best method to cut out somebody's wallet from his pants pocket with a razor blade without him noticing it. A Roma couple tried to rob a friend of mine and when she noticed that the Roma woman was trying to steal her wallet and stopped her, the Roma man then scolded the woman in front of the whole bus for being too clumsy to let herself be noticed.

You see or hear about things like these now and then, but they aren't as ever-present as you say they were in Russia. I don't know how different it is in neighborhoods were the Romas live, but in big cities like Prague, you rarely notice incidents like these. I'm also not sure what the criminality rates among the Roma and non-Roma population are, it could be that they only stand out because of their looks.

Another problem is cultural differences. It could be difficult to live in the same neighborhood with the Romas. It may be because of their nomadic roots or it may not, but some of them (I'm not talking about all of them here) aren't used to living in an urban area. The buildings they live in as well as the area close to them tend to get devastated, and the neighborhood slowly turns into slums. The media sometimes show photos of buildings and areas in terrible conditions that the Romas are forced to live in, however what the media fail to mention is the fact that quite often it was the Romas who devastated them. And should the government decide to help them and move them to another location, the situation would probably repeat itself.

Because of all this, the prejudices against the Romas are still strong in the Czech Republic. However not all of them are problematic, and they still suffer from these prejudices. There are currently between 150 000 and 300 000 Romas in the Czech Republic and according to a certain prominent Roma-rights activist only about 1/3 of them is problematic. The prejudices against the rest of them are therefore unjustified, and the question of Romas integration into society and of the change of public views concerning them is in my opinion one of the more important, if often quite overlooked, issues that the Czech Republic has to deal with.