Brno, Oct 8 (CTK) – A local politician of the ruling Czech Social Democrats (CSSD), Brno-Bohunice deputy mayor Milan Hrdlicka, dismissed the opinion that he is an extremist and said his statement that migrants were like snails whom nothing can stop was a hyperbole.
On Friday, CSSD election leader Lubomir Zaoralek said a man who degraded people in such a way has nothing to do among the Social Democrats.
The incident occurred two weeks before the Czech general election.
In the October issue of the bulletin issued by the Brno-Bohunice district office, Hrdlicka warned against the invasion of snails/migrants.
Hrdlicka claims he is no extremist.
“Mr Zaoralek did not understand the whole meaning of my text… If he called me first, we could have talked about it,” Hrdlicka told CTK.
“I did not do anything wrong, I only wanted to provoke a discussion about migration. I am no xenophobe, no Nazi,” he said.
He said he is a former bomb disposal expert and he helped such people when he joined a foreign mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“I am capable of defending myself, but if there is an order to pillory me” Hrdlicka was ready to leave the party, he said.
“We must not be deluded by the distance from which they are coming, be it Spain, Italy or other southern countries,” Hrdlicka wrote in the bulletin. “They must get to the promised land with enough food, where they will live off the work of others,” he wrote.
“Whoever is speaking in an offensive or hateful way about a certain ethnic group or race, humiliating them by describing them as snails, increases the security risk, harming our nation and its people,” Zaoralek said on Twitter, adding that such a person has no place in the CSSD.
In mid-September, Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Karel Novotny wrote that the Roma are like jellyfish, being “a nuisance, good for nothing.”
Industry and Trade Minister Jiri Havlicek (CSSD) then rebuked him and punished him with the loss of his regular bonus.
