Czech Television: Special team looking into banning the Communist Party

This week a special Czech Interior Ministry team has started preparing background materials for an eventual ban of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM). Czech Interior Minister Radek John (Public Affairs -VV) tasked his security policy department with collecting all the necessary documents in order to decide whether the state should sue the KSČM. Czech Television reported on the team today, saying it is the same as the team that prepared the successful lawsuit that banned the extremist Workers’ Party (Dělnická strana – DS).

The government of Czech PM Petr Nečas has decided to take this action 21 years after the fall of the communist regime. John confirmed that the ministry has sent out letters with requests for such analyses, but he warned the process would be lengthy. According to the Interior Minister, the ministry ordered the analyses at the request of MPs after Friday’s committee hearing on a law recognizing the anti-communist resistance. Friday’s remarks in the lower house by Czech MPs Marta Semelová (KSČM) and Miroslav Grebeníček (KSČM) were part of that hearing.

Friday’s passage of the law to recognize the anti-communist resistance was accompanied by an atmosphere of menace between governing party MPs and the KSČM. Former Communist Party chair Grebeníček was largely responsible for the tension, as his hour-long speech called the law “the political adoration of past terrorist acts” and said those active in the Third Resistance “often were mere adventurers on the border of adulthood.” Grebeníček also defended Marxism, questioned the veracity of those who were members of the anti-communist resistance, and condemned the members of the Mašín brothers’ group.

Interior Ministry security department staff evidently face a more complicated task now than that posed by the Workers’ Party case. However, they may rest some of their arguments on a lawsuit previously sent by Czech Senator Jaromír Štětina to the government on behalf of a special commission. “The Senate infers that the KSČM violates the Constitution and wants an independent court to pass judgment on that suspicion,” Štětina told Czech Television.

The Communists are prepared to defend themselves. Communist MP Milan Bičík told Czech Television the party will make use of all available legal measures.