Czech Plzen could ban extremists' march through city-LPA

The Plzen authorities could have banned a rightist extremists’ march through the town that is scheduled for January 19 and is perceived by Jews as an insult to the memory of the Holocaust victims, League Against Anti-Semitism (LPA) spokeswoman Vera Tydlitatova said today.

She pointed out that the permission was the result of a mistake made by an individual.

The neo-Nazis announced two marches in Plzen, centre of west Bohemia, for January. Though the authorities banned a march scheduled for January 26 they issued a permit for another one scheduled for January 19.

"It was a mistake by an employee who played possum and before the rest learnt what is going on the three-day legal deadline expired," Tydlitatova said.

The authorities of the Plzen central district that dealt with the application had three days to make a decision after the extremists announced their plan.

"It is evident that the authorities failed to sufficiently assess the application. The question is whether the ban would immediately follow if they had properly assessed it. But it would certainly provoke attention," chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities Jiri Danicek told CTK.

The LPA will stage a commemorative ceremony outside Plzen’s Great Synagogue on the day of the planned neo-Nazi march on January 19.

Tydlitatova said she did not expect any clashes because she was confident that the police would ensure security of all participants during the demonstration.

Vaclav Bures, the organiser of the march, announced it to the authorities as a Protest march for the freedom of speech as a reaction to the November police intervention against the planned neo-Nazi march through Prague’s Jewish Quarter frustrated by the police.

The Prague neo-Nazis wanted to stage the march on November 10, the anniversary day of Kristallnacht, the 1938 anti-Jew pogrom in Nazi Germany.

Danicek said, however, the real goal of the January march in Plzen was to ridicule the victims of the Holocaust and the people who survived the Nazi massacre.

He said the date of the event – January 19 – is connected with the first transport of Jews from Plzen to the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp, north Bohemia, that was dispatched on January 18, 1942.
Out of 2605 Jews on the transport only 112 survived the war.

The organisers of the march announced the participation of some 150 radicals but the actual number of participants is expected to be higher and they will probably be armed.

Radicals from Germany are also expected in Plzen since they called for the participation in the march on their website.