Prague, June 29 (CTK) – Artists from the Czech Ztohoven group put on special shoes when climbing the Prague Castle roof to replace the presidential flag with giant red boxer shorts last September in order to minimise a possible damage to the roof, one of them, David Hons, said during their trial on Wednesday.
Moreover, some of the places on the roof, which the artists are suspected of having damaged, were in a poor technical condition even before, Hons said.
Hons and his Ztohoven fellow artists Matej Hajek and Filip Crha have been charged with breach of the peace, theft and damaging of other people’s property. If found guilty, they face up to three years in prison plus 88,000 and 310,000 crowns worth of compensation for the caused property and intellectual damages, respectively.
The court questioned the three artists separately on Wednesday.
The judge finally adjourned the proceedings until August 24.
Both sides to the dispute have requested a testimony of the police officers who inspected the roof after the incident.
“We tried to behave as sensitively as possible in this emergency situation [on the roof],” Hons told the court.
He and Hajek said the damage to the roof of the Prague Castle, the seat of Czech presidents, has been blown out of proportions by the investigators and the state attorney.
Ztohoven spokeswoman Petr Zilka said the group is ready to cover the damage according to the court verdict.
Hons said he had been taught to show respect for state symbols for all his life before. “When I touched the flag I felt I should treat it decently, which aroused the feeling of oddity in me. The cutting of it into pieces relieved me of the oddity,” Hons said.
The artists cut the flag into pieces and distributed it among randomly chosen people on Monday.
The Ztohoven members, disguised as chimney sweepers, hung up giant red boxer shorts on the roof of Prague Castle instead of the presidential flag on September 19, 2015, in protest against incumbent President Milos Zeman’s behaviour in office. They said the flag had flown away.
The group released a video on Facebook saying “the proper flag of a man who is not ashamed of anything finally flies above Prague Castle.” In a statement published later, the group particularly criticised Zeman for siding with dictatorial regimes, such as China and Russia, and his vulgar language.
Zeman’s spokesman Jiri Ovcacek then said the incident caused a damage worth 100,000 crowns.
