Czech court acquits German neo-Nazi over 2011 speech

Yesterday the Municipal Court in Brno acquitted German neo-Nazi Robin Siener of defamation, which the state prosecutor charged him with committing in 2011 at a 1 May demonstration by the Workers' Youth in Brno. At the right-wing extremist meeting, Siener spoke about "multicultural terrorism" and a cheap workforce flooding Europe, among other matters.

He faced up to two years in prison if convicted. Siener claimed he was innocent.  

The verdict has not yet taken effect. Prosecutor Jan Petrásek might appeal to the Regional Court in Brno.  

Petrásek is taking time to consider an appeal. Siener left the courtroom obviously satisfied.

"My speech was social criticism. I talked about these problems the way we talk about them in Germany, and if it's not a problem in Germany, then I don't know why it should be a problem in the Czech Republic," he told the Czech News Agency.

Judge Dagmar Bordovká said in her explanation of the verdict that the speech had been demagogic, xenophobic, and bordered on the criminal. She believed it was a critique of conditions under capitalism and in the EU, but said it was not possible to infer from Siener's words that he had broken the law and committed a felony.  

Expert witness Josef Zouhar's opinion of Siener's speech was unequivocal. "Racism, violence, hatred," Zouhar drily told Czech TV.

Siener spoke to a crowd of approximately 500 right-wing extremists about the fact that a cheap workforce from the East was flooding Europe and that the time would come "when it will be necessary to expel them from the fortress of Europe." He also said that no great poets or scientists had ever come, for example, from Africa or India.

The demonstration took place on Koliště Street in Brno and was convened by the Workers' Youth (Dělnická mládež - DM). That group is linked to the right-wing extremist Workers' Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti - DSSS).

Members of the DSSS leadership have been fined and put on probation because of the radical attitude toward minorities expressed in their own 1 May speeches given at a demonstration in 2009 in Brno. The party's activities continue those of the neo-Nazi Workers' Party (Dělnická strana - DS), which was dissolved in 2010 by the Czech Supreme Administrative Court.