Prague, Aug 19 (CTK) – About 50 people took part in a march against persecution and maltreatment of women in Islam that was organised by the We Don’t Want Islam in the Czech Republic and the Bloc Against Islam groups in Prague’s centre this afternoon.
The organisers said they want to point out the allegedly subordinate position of women in Islamic countries.
Members of the Young Greens group carrying banners with faces of Muslim women who fight for gender equality in Islamic countries protested against the march.
Their Prague spokesman Filip Schneider said the Young Greens support the idea of the struggle for women’s rights but they fear that the organisers of the march wanted to use the issue of women’s maltreatment as a pretext for spreading hatred against Islam.
Beatrice Radosa, from the Bloc Against Islam, who was one of the speakers at the event along with Martin Konvicka and Pavlina Bitterova, rejected this allegation.
Radosa said general freedom was at variance with Islam.
Schneider disagreed with this. “Islam as a religion is not the problem. We know of a lot of Muslim men and women who support the modern concept of women’s rights, who fight for it and are often persecuted because of it,” he said.
The marchers released butterflies as a symbol of freedom and they sang Czech folk songs.
Several events against Islam have recently been organised in the country in reaction to fears of Islamic militants and refugees from the Middle East.
The police consider the We Don’t Want Islam in the Czech Republic group a far-right initiative.
kva/dr/rtj
