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Czech MEP candidate wants to ban immigration into the EU

01 February 2014
4 minute read

Klára Samková, a candidate for the European Parliament on the ticket of the Dawn of Direct Democracy (Úsvit přímé demokracie) party, is continuing the harsh rhetoric of party chair Tomio Okamura. Samková has released a statement in favor of a total ban on immigration into EU countries. 

News server iDNES.cz reports that the German Nazi NSDAP party had practically the identical point on its program in 1920. "I will always protect the European Union against immigrants. Emigration into EU countries is really a large-scale disaster. You can talk about it all you like but it won’t help, I’m sorry, a clear signal must be sent that the EU countries will not accept ANY EMIGRANTS – that we will protect the EU, its southern states in particular," Samková says in the statement, which was sent by Úsvit to the press.

Samková’s statement further escalates one of the points in the Úsvit movement’s program for last year’s elections to the lower house, which reads:  "We want stricter conditions for the Czech Republic’s immigration policy. We do not want inadaptable immigrants here or the arrival of religious fanatics."

It is precisely this sentence that evokes one of the declarations of the Nazi NSDAP program of 24 February 1920. That declaration read, in part: "There is a need to halt all immigration by non-Germans. We demand all non-Germans who moved into Germany after 2 August 1914 be immediately forced to leave the Reich." 

The NSDAP program was published three years before the party first attempted to seize power through the so-called Munich beer putsch. At the time, the newly-established party was a marginal formation on the German political scene. 

"[Okamura and Úsvit] are unequivocally profiling themselves as the brilliant ideological successors to Miroslav Sládek’s Republicans," claims historian and political scientist Stanislav Balík. "On the current political scene, their rhetoric is definitely the most simplistic and operates at the lowest level, that of basic animosity, and not only where the topic of emigration is concerned."

Sládek is a Czech ultra-right politician who is best known to the public for his anti-Romani statements. His Association for the Republic – Republican Party of Czechoslovakia (Sdružení pro republiku – Republikánská strana Československa) was dissolved by the Supreme Administrative Court.

Prior to the party being dissolved, Tomáš Vandas and his followers left the SPR-RSČ to establish the Workers’ Party (Dělnická strana). That party was also eventually dissolved by court order.   

On Monday, Okamura explained the relationship between Samková and Romani people on his Facebook profile. "She is not of Romani origin at all, she comes from a family of lawyers in Brno. Her only personal ‘link’ to Romani people is that her first husband was Romani, but her current, second husband is a Czech sports journalist who is not Romani," Okamura posted to his supporters.   

The party chair went on to say that Samková "is no protector of the Roma at all cost and has said so publicly (if she were, she naturally could not run as an Úsvit candidate)". Samková told iDNES.cz that Okamura’s statement did not bother her and that she saw nothing wrong with it. 

"Political debate exists here so that various opinions can clash with one another, and in my view this should not be criminalized. However, whether such statements directly incite hatred is another matter. That is the line recognized by our criminal law," said Balík when asked about the line between what is politically acceptable and what isn’t.      

"Trafficking in immigrants is one of the most lucrative businesses of the criminal networks, and its reach extends to the highest ranks of politics and to the so-called NGOs. If you declare zero tolerance, you will shut their business down. Try to look at this from that angle. After all, this is about white (or in this case, black) slavery," Samková responded, adding that she believes political scientist Balík to be an idealist.    

"As far the Germans are concerned, this kind of trafficking in human beings wasn’t going on then. Was it? Did anyone invite thousands of emigrants into that absolutely impoverished country? That’s not how it was then, and this is a different situation now. Under the guise of humanism, we are are playing into the hands of one of the largest criminal cartels," the attorney said when asked about the parallel between Úsvit and the NSDAP.  

Balík believes immigration can represent a problem from a certain point of view, "and that is when people emigrate to a country where they don’t identify with its cultural values and refuse to accept them," he warns. "That is genuinely a problem worth solving. However, we will not find the solution in simplistic shouting about banning emigration."   

"Maybe in a few years, when we are all living in retirement homes, we’ll be glad there is someone here to take care of us," Balík said. "As long as we continue to have the same problems with our demographic situation that we have at this moment, we’ll just be glad to have someone driving the buses."  

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