Prague, June 8 (CTK) – The Prague Municipal Court will start next week dealing with the legal complaint filed by the far-right extra-parliamentary National Democracy (ND) party against the Interior Ministry over being repeatedly called extremist by it, court spokeswoman Marketa Puci told CTK today.
The ND protests against this state of affairs and demands a public apology for harm to its reputation, Puci said.
The party complains about the reports on extremism in the Czech Republic the Interior Ministry regularly publishes on its website.
It demands that all mentions about it should be deleted from them.
It also wants the Interior Ministry to post an apology on the front page of the website for 15 days.
It should say “We apologise to the political party National Democracy for its being persistently mentioned in the reports on extremism. The political party National Democracy does not fulfil the definition of an extremist party and it was placed in the reports on extremism unrightfully.”
In the complaint, the ND stresses that it is a legal party registered with the Interior Ministry, advocating democratic values.
It feels strongly harmed by the claim that it is its aim to damage the Czech Republic’s constitutional order and democratic principles.
The party defines itself as “conservative and patriotic.”
ND leader Adam B. Bartos is facing the charges of genocide denial and approval, incitement for hatred and defamation of a nation.
Last October, Bartos was given a one-year suspended sentence for placing an anti-Semitic text at the grave of Anezka Hruzova, a 19-year-year Czech girl who was murdered in Polna, south Moravia, in 1899.
In the blood libel case, Jew Leopold Hilsner was falsely found guilty of her murder and sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was only pardoned in 1918.
Bartos and an ND member displayed a sign with a photograph of the murdered woman and a text reading, among others: “The Jewish question has not been resolved in a satisfactory manner yet.”
In its latest quarterly report on extremism, the Interior Ministry said the ND was trying to gain the main position within the extreme right, trying to establish contacts with neo-Nazi individuals and groupings.
pv/dr/kva
