Police have proposed charging Czech far-right leader Tomio Okamura and his party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) over controversial posters from last year’s election campaign, which may constitute incitement of hatred, according to reports from Seznam Zpravy today.
Okamura faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
Okamura told CTK that he considers the case to have been manipulated, and will comment further when he is familiar with the decision.
The motion will now be considered by the District State Prosecutor’s Office for Prague 1. According to the server, the prosecutor has not yet made a decision on whether to file the charges.
“This is an effort by Prime Minister Fiala (ODS) and Interior Minister Rakusan (STAN) to criminalize the opposition for the anti-immigration poster, because the Fiala government is trying to manipulate the elections in its favour in order to stay in power at all costs,” Okamura told CTK.
Police officers charged Okamura and his party after the MP’s immunity from prosecution was lifted by the Chamber of Deputies. The posters used in the campaign for last year’s regional and Senate elections had racist and xenophobic overtones, according to criminal investigators.
One of the posters featured a dark-skinned man with a blood-stained knife and shirt, along with the text “Shortcomings in the health care system will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons'”. Another AI-generated image showed two Roma boys smoking a cigarette, with accompanying text reading “They tell us to go to school, but my parents don’t care at all…” and “Support only for families where children go to school”.
Okamura claims that the ruling coalition is simply trying to criminalize opposition views and prevent SPD from participating in this year’s elections to the Chamber of Deputies.
