Spiegel Online reports Czech Republic has a problem with extremism

The German news server Spiegel Online reports that while during the 1990s the Czech Republic responded to racism and sedition with an "uprising of the respectable", today mainstream politicians are competing to outdo the right-wing extremist parties in order to win a majority in Parliament. The article entitled "Prague Winter" alleges that the country has changed.
The piece criticizes Czech President Miloš Zeman, among others. Spiegel Online describes the current affair around the racist responses to the photograph of first- graders at a primary school in Teplice, or the brutal attack by football rowdies on a man from West Africa on a Prague tram.
"These are far from the very worst such cases in the Czech Republic," the news server states, reminding readers that during the 1990s and after 2000 the country experienced many racially motivated murders of Africans and Romani people. Previously, however, according to Spiegel Online, there was a broad anti-extremist and anti-racist consensus predominant in Czech politics and society.
Today, according to the server, things are different. While Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and Czech Education Minister Stanislav Štech have condemned these racist displays, Czech President Zeman relativized them.
Spiegel Online also reports that Zeman made a racist remark when he alleged that 90 % of the "inadaptable" citizens in the country are probably Romani. Such remarks, according to Spiegel Online, are not unique and are not made just by the head of state.
The most recent displays of racism, according to the online magazine, were seen in the context of the October Parliamentary elections in which parties profiled as against the establishment, as well as ultra-right parties, scored gains. Spiegel Online reports that the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party of Tomio Okamura, who is advocating, among other things, for a ban on Islam in the Czech Republic, have enough votes to be able, together with the communists, to prop up the Government being formed by the head of the ANO movement, Andrej Babiš.
Don't miss:
- Czech Republic commemorates Velvet Revolution, Prague Police arrest two right-wing extremists
- Czech military intelligence: Extremists' Islamophobic declarations legitimize the ideology of radical Islamists
- Czech extremists abuse LGBT pride march in town of Plzeň but fail to block it
- Commentary: Czech politician takes photo with extremists who have records of racist violence
Related articles:
- US President Biden condemns white supremacist terrorist attack in Buffalo, New York that murdered 10 people
- Czech capital to see demonstration in support of Romani refugees from Ukraine calling for dignified conditions
- Tent city in Czech capital has not solved the situation of the Romani refugees from Ukraine, hundreds at main station, few with Hungarian passports
- Czech Health Minister: Room for Romani refugees from Ukraine has to be found outside of Prague
- Czech university distances itself from e-mail alleging increased security needed for dorm because of refugees from Ukraine
- Czech Caritas branch objects to Romani political party's critique of aid to Romani refugees from Ukraine, party stands by its allegations
- Jarmila Balážová: Condemnation of refugee Romani children and their mothers from Ukraine is unfair when their brothers, fathers and sons are fighting back at home!
- Prague Mayor tells Czech Govt that if refugees are not redistributed elsewhere in the country by Tuesday, he will close the assistance center
- VIDEO: Tents for Romani refugees from Ukraine were erected in the Czech capital in the Troja neighborhood
- Mayor of Prague says if the Czech state does not systematize the distribution of refugees it will close its aid center, tent city supposedly being built
- Commentary: Arrogant behavior of Czech Railways staff toward Romani refugees from Ukraine and absurd police proposals
- Romani nonprofits and civil society members of the Czech Govt Council on Roma Minority Affairs call on PM to hold a crisis meeting with them about aid to Romani Ukrainian refugees