Former president Vaclav Klaus was caught eating inside a closed restaurant breaking COVID-19 restrictions on Tuesday, and when questioned about it, owned it and referred to it as an “act of civil disobedience.”
Klaus denied being a threat to the public, and noted that unlike other politicians who advocated the lockdowns but then broke them anyway, he was against it from the beginning. He even joined an anti-lockdown protest days earlier.
“I’m not the one who preaches water but then drinks wine like the other politicians who broke their own rules by visiting restaurants. I’ve been critcising these rules from the very beginning!”
“We mustn’t accept this existence where we constantly face extensions of these rules and prohibitions. In a free country, one should have the right to go where one wants. If someone is denied those rights then he should try to push the boundaries of what’s possible, not just for himself, but for everyone.”
Originally reported by denik Blesk, the former president’s black-market restaurant trip lasted for about an hour and fifteen minutes while his bodyguards waited outside.
The restaurant manager, who didn’t want to be named, said that Klaus was a loyal customer and came in to use the bathroom and then took his food to-go.
Klaus joins a growing list of politicians who have been busted breaking COVID-19 restrictions, including ANO’s former minister of health Roman Prymyla and chairman Jaroslav Faltýnek, who also had a meeting in a restaurant while it was supposed to be closed. Both men ended up resigning.
Image by David Sedlecký via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0
