Czech bands boycott club in Prague that supports neo-Nazi group

The website Plzeňské kapely.cz reports that three bands from the Czech town of Plzeň – Donnie Darko, Emmett Brown and Positive Mind – have decided to cancel their 1 November concert at the Kain club in Prague. The venue is planning to support the neo-Nazi band Ortel by letting it perform there.

Ortel has always claimed it is not a neo-Nazi band. Nevertheless, members of Positive Mind gave that as one of their reasons for cancelling the Prague gig in a post to their Facebook profile.

“The rise in popularity of this group is responsible for the marches by the latent and not-so-latent nationalists in Plzeň (members of Ortel stand in the front row of those events). We do not support patriotism in this form of display. You can believe what you want, but the club is organizing [Ortel’s] production quite consciously,” Positive Mind has written.

Ortel is slowly but surely being played more often on the radio and more contemporary music fans are becoming aware of them. Plzeňské kapely.cz opines that “This is wrong, and if you disagree, then do the work of finding something out about Czech history on Wikipedia, for example. Wake up, read, think for yourself. Don’t excuse everything by talking about the Romani problem, develop your own opinion about the problems and woes of our everyday life. Express your disagreement with the plague of violence and the filthy, racist codes embedded in the would-be patriotic lyrics of Ortel and those like them. Don’t support clubs where these bands play. You can personally boycot specific performances, talk about them, post about them to social networking sites and share this article with others.”