Prague, Oct 25 (CTK) – The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, will honour the Holocaust survivor, Jiri Brady, at a special session on Thursday morning, the Chamber leadership agreed and its chairman Jan Hamacek wrote to CTK yesterday.
Brady, 88 , whose alleged deletion from the list of personalities to to be awarded on October 28 by President Milos Zeman has aroused a dispute, will receive a medal and a commemorative certificate at the Thursday session starting at 11::00, after a regular question time.
The lower session will be interrupted then and MPs will appreciate Brady’s stances, Hamacek said.
A few days ago, Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) accused Zeman of having said he would bestow a state award, the Order of T.G. Masaryk, on Brady, who is Herman’s relative, on October 28 if Herman refrained from meeting the Tibetan Dalai Lama during his visit to Prague.
After Herman met the Dalai Lama on October 18, the Presidential Office decided to not decorate Brady.
The Presidential Office has denied the accusation.
It was Deputy Miroslava Nemcova (opposition Civic Democrats, ODS) who suggested a special lower house meeting to honour Brady since the Chamber of Deputies proposed that Zmean decorate him with the T. G. Masaryk Order.
Brady, who survived the Terezin (Theresienstadt) internment camp for Jews, north Bohemia, and the Auschwitz Nazi extermination camp, left for Canada in 1949. He has written and lectured on the Holocaust and helped immigrants.
Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek told journalists yesterday that Zeman would consider awarding Brady on another suitable occasion. He is ready to do so as a goodwill gesture, Ovcacek said, adding that it is impossible to enforce a state award with a campaign.
A number of leading Czech politicians have called on Zeman to decorate Brady. Some of them are considering not to attend the October 28 ceremony at Prague Castle due to the affair.
