Czech Police will step up security measures at the Prague Pride festival next week, and the event will be supervised by more police officers and detectives than usual, after information emerged yesterday about a planned terrorist attack on a recent similar event in Bratislava.
Police have no information that the festival in Prague faces a specific risk.
The security measures will involve riot police, officers from the anti-conflict team, patrols with long guns and criminal investigators from the extremism and terrorism department.
“There will also be other specialists there to protect soft targets, which we will not specify for tactical reasons,” said Prague Police spokesman Jan Danek. A police helicopter and a riot unit will also be deployed.
Police officers will oversee both the festival’s accompanying events and the parade that will pass through the centre of the capital on Saturday, 10 August. Police expect tens of thousands of people to attend.
“In view of the information brought by the Slovak National Crime Agency about a planned terrorist attack on the event that took place in Slovakia a few days ago, Prague police have stepped up the parameters of this security measure,” Danek said. He added that Czech police have no information that the Prague event was at any particular risk.
Slovak police said in mid-July that they had uncovered a group of people involved in communication groups on Telegram, where hate speech and calls to incite violence were being spread.
In the group, police recorded communications about the planning of a terrorist attack on participants in last month’s Rainbow Pride festival in Bratislava. Police in several European countries, including Slovakia, have intervened in connection with the case, and suspects have been arrested, the Slovak police command told CTK yesterday.
According to reports yesterday from Denik N, Czech police from the National Centre against Terrorism, Extremism and Cybercrime arrested one underage Czech in connection with the plot in Moravia, and the boy has been placed in custody. According to the report, he co-founded the Telegram group where radical materials were shared, and the terror plot was planned.
Olomouc High Public Prosecutor Radim Dragoun told Denik N that the boy is not being prosecuted for the actual preparation of the terrorist attack on the Bratislava parade, as he voluntarily refrained from further action. Police are charging him with supporting and promoting terrorism, and with founding, supporting and promoting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms. An adult offender could face up to 15 years in prison for these offences, while sentences for juveniles are reduced.
