Czechs angry at being confused for Chechnya by social networks
22 April 2013 6:22 AM IST
The Czech ambassador to the US has expressed concern over remarks in the US social networks wrongly aiming the central european country for Chechan rebels over the Boston Marathon terror attack.
Dozens of messages accusing the Czechs of terrorism and even calling for US retaliation against the Czech Republic appeared in the US segments of Twitter and Facebook after reports emgerged that the two suspects had Chechen origins.
‘As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect,’ Czech Ambassador Petr Gandalovic said in a statement.
The bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were said to be members of a family originally from Chechnya. It lies in the volatile North Caucasus region of Russia where federal forces have been battling Islamist insurgents for years. ‘The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities. Czech Republic is a central european country (that was originally a part of Czechoslovakia); Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation,’ Gandalovic pointed out.
Dozens of messages accusing the Czechs of terrorism and even calling for US retaliation against the Czech Republic appeared in the US segments of Twitter and Facebook after reports emgerged that the two suspects had Chechen origins.
‘As more information on the origin of the alleged perpetrators is coming to light, I am concerned to note in the social media a most unfortunate misunderstanding in this respect,’ Czech Ambassador Petr Gandalovic said in a statement.
The bombing suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were said to be members of a family originally from Chechnya. It lies in the volatile North Caucasus region of Russia where federal forces have been battling Islamist insurgents for years. ‘The Czech Republic and Chechnya are two very different entities. Czech Republic is a central european country (that was originally a part of Czechoslovakia); Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation,’ Gandalovic pointed out.
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