Czech Republic: Defendants in Wotan Jugend trial say they were just selling stickers

Three young men charged with supporting the ultra-right Wotan Jugend movement from Russia told a Czech court on 6 May that they have not been promoting extremism. They claim to have just been selling stickers with symbols of the movement in order to financially support a friend in prison.

The imprisoned man has also been charged in the case, as has the founder of the movement’s Czech cell, Russian citizen Sergei Busygin. The indictment charges the five with establishing, supporting and promoting a movement to suppress human rights and freedoms.

The trial has begun at the Prague 8 District Court. Two of the defendants face up to 10 years in prison, while three face up to five years if convicted.

Busygin (age 22) is a permanent resident of the Czech Republic but did not attend the trial in person at his attorney’s request. The other three defendants, Vojtěch Hájek, Lukáš Kolumpek and Marcel Palacký, came to the court accompanied by their counsel.    

The fifth defendant, Daniel Houdek, was escorted to the trial from prison where he is serving a sentence for racially motivated violence. Hájek refused to testify, while the other defendants told the court they had not being supporting or promoting neo-Nazism.  

The state prosecutor said that Busygin "established and promoted the Czech branch of the ultra-right Wotan Jugend movement, which can be called a movement inspired by Nazi symbolism, terminology, and arguments used by Hitler’s Germany." He is said to have brought the movement’s flag and music connected with it into the Czech Republic along with its ideas.

Busygin also arranged for the production and sale of Wotan Jugend stickers. "He disseminated these ideas and promotional materials among persons from the ultra-right scene with whom he repeatedly met in Bar No. 59 in Prague and elsewhere," the prosecutor said.

Detectives broke up the group last May after an investigation that took several months. Busygin is said to have promoted the movement at the 1 May rally of the Workers’ Social Justice Party in 2013 in Přerov, to which he brought the Wotan Jugend flag.  

Busygin is also charged with receiving anabolic steroids, which are banned in the Czech Republic. The judge said the trial will continue in June.  

Attorneys are asking for testimony from an expert witness in the field of political science and many witnesses. The neo-Nazi Wotan Jugend organization was first created by members of the Moloth music group in 2008 in Russia.  

The movement is based on the idea of providing financial, ideological and propaganda support to prisoners convicted of committing crimes motivated by hatred for those of another ethnicity, nationality or race. The group raises money to support and promote the movement by selling CDs, clothing, stickers and other items with the motif of the movement or Moloth and by holding concerts, fund-raising events and sports matches.