Czech youth prosecuted for promoting Nazism on Facebook

Czech Police are investigating a 22-year-old man from the Hodonín district for promoting Nazism on the Facebook social networking site. The man collected and uploaded Nazi-themed photographs and video, including clips of Adolf Hitler, to his profile, which also featured links to video clips of neo-Nazi music groups and extremist organizations. These materials were available to anyone and the young man added his own positive comments about them, police spokesperson Petr Zámečník told the Czech Press Agency today. The man faces up to three years in prison for expressing sympathy for a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms.

The Facebook user posted video clips of Hitler given the “Sieg heil!” greeting, footage of people giving the Nazi salute, and famous Nazi symbols such as the swastika and similar materials to his profile. The recordings included expressions of racial intolerance toward Jews accompanied by photographs from the Nazi concentration camps, including the mass graves of Jewish victims.

“The perpetrator commented on the video clips of the neo-Nazi bands that he liked the music and found it amusing. He confessed to having participated in right-wing radical demonstrations,” Zámečník said.

According to detectives, there is no doubt that through his Facebook profile the man has publicly expressed a positive relationship towards a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms and advocating ethnic, national, racial or religious hatred. The young man is one of the first in the Czech Republic to face prosecution for the content he has contributed to the famous social networking site.