Czech Police charge man who wore banned neo-Nazi symbols to ultra-right rally

The Most edition of Deník.cz reports that police officers in Litvínov have announced that they suspect a 31-year-old local man of having committed the offense of demonstrating sympathy for a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms when he attended an assembly of the Workers Social Justice Party (DSSS) on the afternoon of Saturday, 17 November wearing a vest featuring the symbol of a eagle and the number 14. According to police, that was a public display of sympathy for the neo-Nazi movement.

The officers confiscated the vest and are addressing the case through an accelerated preliminary proceedings. In neo-Nazi ideology, the number 14 symbolizes the so-called “Fourteen Words”, which summarize white supremacists’ resolve to “preserve a future for white children.”

The original English-language version of the sentence is:  “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The slogan was formulated by the American racist David Lane, a member of the neo-Nazi terrorist organization The Order.

Lane was sentenced in 1984 to 190 years in federal prison for committing anti-Jewish violence and died in prison in 2007. Public espousal of neo-Nazism has happened at other DSSS demonstrations in the Czech Republic over the years.

For example, on 18 August 2018, during a demonstration in Dubí, one woman attending gave the Nazi salute. Another woman attending the DSSS march in Ústí nad Labem in 2014 wore earrings in the shape of a Nazi swastika.