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Czech Police propose prosecution of ultra-right extremist, he faces three years if convicted

12 February 2017
2 minute read

Prague Police have proposed prosecuting the chair of the ultra-right National Democracy party, Adam B.Bartoš, for the crimes of approving of, or denying, justifying or questioning genocide, inciting hatred, defaming a nation and approving of a felony. Tomáš Hulan, spokesperson for the Prague Police, informed the Czech News Agency of the indictment on 7 February.

According to previously reported information, Bartoš allegedly committed these crimes through the content of a book and other writings he has published, as well as in the speeches he has made in public. If convicted he faces up to three years in prison.

The indictment was filed by detectives in mid-January, Hulan told the Czech News Agency. According to police, Bartoš has intentionally incited hatred of Jews in his books and speeches, and has similarly targeted immigrants.

Bartoš was first accused last April. On the website of his party, he announced that police had confiscated documents from him and performed a house search in his home and at his party headquarters.

At the time he characterized the accusations as a political trial intended to intimidate National Democracy and its sympathizers. Last October he was given a one-year suspended prison sentence for his conduct at the monument to Anežka Hrůzová, a Czech girl whose murder in 1899 was exploited by antisemites.

Bartoš and the then-vice chair of the party, Ladislav Zemánek, left a sign at the monument that said, among other things: “The Jewish Question has not yet been satisfactorily solved.” The court refrained from punishing Zemánek in the matter.

A Jewish man, Leopold Hilsner, was accused of Hrůzová’s murder and then sentenced to death for it. The case sparked a wave of antisemitism that became known as the “Hilsner Affair“.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk appealed the case to the supreme court and Hilsner’s death sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment before he was pardoned by the emperor in 1918. Masaryk went on to become the first president of a democratic, independent Czechoslovakia.

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