Former Czech PM will have no problem bringing the leader of the xenophobes into his cabinet

This is probably a good time to recall who Okamura is and what the SPD is. To aid my memory, I will use the regular reports on extremism in the Czech Republic.

ANO’s past and present chair, Babiš, speaking on the Partie program on TV Prima, would not rule out forming a coalition government with the SPD movement. “The SPD is voted for by half a million people, why should we exclude them somehow?” he answered the moderator’s question about a possible coalition, adding that he disagrees with the Okamura’s movement on the question of holding a referendum to withdraw from the EU.

According to current polling by the Kantar CZ agency, a hypothetical coalition of ANO and the SPD could score 115 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, a comfortable majority. Radim Fiala, the SPD vice-chair, has congratulated Babiš on his re-election as the head of ANO and offered to collaborate with him on their crusade against the current coalition Government.

Who are these people with whom Babiš says he would have no problem governing the country?

Surfing the anti-Islamic wave

The Department of Security Policy at the Interior Ministry has been continually mapping domestic extremism in its reports since 2009. Tomio Okamura, or more precisely, the political group he controls, has left a distinct mark on those reports.

Okamura, who was once a darling of the media, is first mentioned in the report for the final quarter of 2012 as follows:

• “Support for some publicly active persons criticizing the ‘establishment’ was reflected by the DSSS (Workers’ Social Justice Party) leadership, who offered Daniel Landa and Tomio Okamura the party’s informal support. In the latter case support was offered after [DSSS chair] T. Vandas withdrew his candidacy for the presidency.”
• “On the contrary, some adherents of PEX (the Interior Ministry acronym meaning ‘right-wing extremism’, author’s note) have been inclining toward support for the candidacy of Tomio Okamura given his advocacy for ‘national values and pride’.”

Simply put, Okamura’s public appearances began addressing the people who until then had focused on the extreme right, but he himself had not yet earned the label of “extremist” from the Interior Ministry. In the years 2015 and 2016 he is mentioned repeatedly in the reports in relation to feeding off of people’s fears of Muslims immigrating to the Czech Republic.

• “Among the entities which are anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and populist, attempts were also apparent to create coalitions or partnerships. The above-mentioned BPI (Anti-Islam Bloc) has communicated with the parties Dawn (Úsvit), ND (National Democracy) and with MP Tomio Okamura,“ the report on extremism for the second quarter of 2015 states.

In the report for the third quarter of 2016, analysts at the ministry state that “a big part of the Islamophobic public has started preferring the Freedom and Direct Democracy party (the party established by Okamura in 2015). Compared to the other, purely anti-immigrant or anti-Islam entities, that party is oriented toward a broader circle of subjects.”

His anti-immigrant ride continued in 2017:

• “The Freedom and Direct Democracy – Tomio Okamura movement (hereinafter the ‘SPD’) earned the most […] from operating with the subjects of Islam and migration, celebrating a significant success with 10.64 % (538,574 votes). The SPD movement uses better-quality, more effective marketing of its politics compared to extremist parties. Moreover, its representatives are not limited by court verdicts or ongoing criminal proceedings, compared to the DSSS and ND,“ the report on extremism in the Czech Republic for that year states..

Vacuuming up extreme-right subject matter

Immediately in the first quarter of 2018 the experts at the Interior Ministry announce Okamura’s triumph:

• “Extreme-right groups as traditionally conceived have lost their political relevance. The Freedom and Direct Democracy – Tomio Okamura movement has worked the most effectively with a similar agenda.“ Of course, this is still accompanied by the caveat that Okamura & Co. “cannot be labeled extremist per the definition used by the Interior Ministry”. However, that would soon change.

Let’s return to the report from the start of 2018, though:

• “Far greater attention, of course, was prompted by speech associated with the Freedom and Direct Democracy – Tomio Okamura movement (hereinafter, the SPD). In the context of purchasing the industrial pig farm at Lety, remarks were recorded by several movement representatives about the former labor camp and specifically the ‘Gypsy Camp’ there, where several hundred persons died during the Second World War and from which hundreds more were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp. In February, the Police of the Czech Republic started criminal proceedings on the suspicion of committing felony denial, doubting of, approval of and justification of genocide against three members of the movement including its chair, Tomio Okamura. The remarks by movement representatives sparked a great deal of criticism from national minority representatives, Holocaust survivors and publicly-known figures, including several politicians. Police also started the prosecution of ex-SPD secretary Jaroslav Staník over his alleged remarks made on the Chamber of Deputies premises. That prosecution is for felony incitement to hatred of a group and its individual members, incitement to restrict the rights and freedoms of those members, and denying, douting, approving of and justifying genocide.”
• “During its appearances, the SPD movement continued to operate with migrants and Muslims. It proposed a bill to criminalize support for hateful ideologies. The SPD says the aim of the bill would be to prosecute ‘the hateful ideology of Islam’.”
• “The North Moravian organization of the SPD warned against the activists, civic initiatives and nonprofits guided by American financier George Soros. Such ‘traitors’ were alleged to have been planning a ‘Czech Maidan‘. However, the security forces have no findings available regarding such allegations.”

At the close of 2018, the Interior Ministry reported that:

• Police investigated and shelved the crime report against the three MPs of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement (Tomio Okamura, Radek Rozvoral and Miloslav Rozner) for remarks made about the camp at Lety u Písku. Nevertheless, the Prague office of the prosecutor returned Rozner’s case back to the detectives for further investigation. The Prague Police subsequently asked the Chamber of Deputies to strip that politician of immunity. The case made it to the Committee on Immunity but had not yet been decided during the period under review.
• At the District Court for Prague 1 the trial began of the ex-secretary of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement, Jaroslav Staník, who is facing an indictment for making hateful remarks about minorities on the grounds of the Chamber of Deputies.

In the report for the first quarter of 2019, the analysts at the ministry quote a ruling in which the judges linked Okamura and his party with the first-ever completed act of terrorism to be tried and convicted in the Czech Republic:

• “The Prague Regional Court convicted Jaromír Balda of terrorism and threatening terrorism, sentencing him to four years in a maximum-security prison. Furthermore, he was instructed to receive outpatient psychiatric treatment. In 2017, Balda twice felled trees across a railway line in Central Bohemia with the aim of derailing a train. He then attempted to ascribe responsibility for these attacks to immigrant Muslims through leaflets strewn about at the site. The senior citizen also disseminated leaflets with threatening texts in various locations throughout Bohemia to create the impression that an immigrant who believed in an extremist form of Islam had written them. It was purely a coincidence that his terrorist attacks did not result in fatalities. Both the prosecutor and Balda appealed the verdict. The case is the first to ever convict somebody of completing an act of terrorism in the Czech Republic. During the trial, Balda’s ties to the SPD movement were proven. In their verdict, the judges clearly speak of the manipulation by public figures exploiting the credulousness of persons such as Balda and their fears in order to score political points.”
• “The SPD movement is struggling with internal disagreements. The influential North Moravian organization of the SPD was first dissolved. Czech MP Lubomír Volný, former chair of that organization, had accused the movement of having neo-Nazis and racists in its ranks. He was excluded from the SPD club in the lower house along with two other MPs. Another important moment was the movement’s parting of ways with Aeronet, an influential website. That particular media outlet, a purveyor of conspiracy theories and xenophobia, had begun to publish articles critical of the leading actors in the SPD movement.”
• “The Chamber of Deputies declined to strip Czech MP Miloslav Rozner (SPD) of immunity for the remarks in which he called the camp at Lety a ‘non-existent pseudo-concentration camp’. The Committee on Mandates and Immunity had not recommended stripping him of immunity. At the District Court for Prague 1 the trial continued of the ex-assistant to an MP and ex-secretary of the SPD, Jaroslav Staník, indicted on suspicion of committing felony incitement to hatred against a group and its individual members, incitement to restricting the rights and freedoms of its members, and denying, doubting, approving of and justifying genocide. He allegedly committed those crimes by shouting hateful remarks inside the Chamber of Deputies.”
• “The most-followed incident on the domestic ‘alternative’ media scene was the parting of the ways between Aeronet and the SPD. The website began attacking some representatives of Okamura’s movement. The offensive articles generally did not contain any revealing claims; nevertheless, they attempted to create the impression of contributing new, scandalous revelations. The SPD movement tried to respond to these writings. This parting of the ways was followed in great detail both by activists who are xenophobes and by the rest of the media. A paradoxical situation thus arose whereby a movement with a strong representation in Parliament was significantly harmed by an anonymous media project. Such media projects can manage, on the one hand, to quickly score points for political parties, but on the other hand they also manage to harm them rather effectively and rapidly as well.”

The leader of the Czech xenophobes

In its report on the second quarter of 2019, the Interior Ministry pulls no punches and categorizes Okamura’s party as a “xenophobic entity”:

• “A continuing second-quarter trend is the growth in hate speech targeting specific groups or their individual members because of their political convictions. The elections to the European Parliament showed the clear dominance of the Freedom and Direct Democracy – Tomio Okamura movement among the xenophobic entities. The movement has unambiguously overshadowed extremist parties as traditionally conceived.”
• “The right-wing extremist parties as traditionally conceived were oriented mainly toward their relations with colleagues abroad during the period under review. A large part of their domestic subject matter continues to be taken over from them by the more effective, progressive Freedom and Direct Democracy – Tomio Okamura movement (hereinafter, the ‘SPD’) and by other populist, xenophobic groups.“
• “Leading figures of the right-wing extremist scene have long been unable to agree on how to collaborate. The relationships toward the SPD movement are complicating the situation. Several right-wing extremists have already stood up to Okamura, while others still hope the chair of the movement will start collaborating with them and that they will be able to take advantage of the advantages this party has by virtue of its parliamentary seats.”
• “After the April assembly by the SPD movement on Prague’s Wenceslas Square, criminal proceedings were opened against two persons. One man was informed through a shortened procedure that he was suspected of giving the Nazi salute. He was given a suspended prison sentence and fined CZK 30,000 [EUR 1,200] by court order. However, he disagreed with the punishment, so his case will be heard by the District Court for Prague 1. A woman is also suspected of felony display of sympathy for a movement aiming to suppress human rights and freedoms for visibly decorating herself with neo-Nazi insignia.”
• “The District Court for Prague 1 sentenced the ex-secretary of the SPD, Jaroslav Staník, to a one-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, and a fine in the amount of CZK 70,000 [EUR 2,750] for the racist remarks he made in the Chamber of Deputies in 2017. Staník has appealed.”
• “[Police] have started a criminal proceedings on suspicion of committing felony incitement of hatred toward a group and its individual members and incitement to restrict the rights and freedoms of its members against MP Karla Maříková (SPD) for her remarks comparing immigrants who are Muslims to invasive animal or plant species which should be forbidden entry to EU territory.”
• “The xenophobic mood of part of Czech society continued to be artfully encouraged by the SPD movement, in particular through social media. The movement has been continually, intentionally creating the impression that the majority population of the Czech Republic is acutely threatened by immigration and Islamization, and that it is necessary to start defending the country immediately, otherwise ‘we will be second-class people in our own country’. Representatives of the SPD have quite actively expressed their views on any incidents or negative phenomena which are related whatsoever to migrants or Muslims either at home or abroad. The symbiosis between the SPD and some media outlets spreading hateful prejudices has functioned quite effectively on this subject. Ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, the movement significantly bet on its partnership with other entities in Europe, especially with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in the Netherlands and Matteo Salvini’s Northern League in Italy. Okamura met Salvini first in Prague and then in Milan. Le Pen and Wilders personally attended the April assembly by the SPD on Wenceslas Square. The former neo-Nazi and musician Tomáš Hnídek (Ortel) also participated in that event. A protest action was also convened against the SPD assembly called the ‘Noise Olympics’. Ten participants in that protest were arrested for failing to obey a public official.”
• “Elections to the European Parliament saw a gain of 216,718 votes (9.14 %) for the SPD, an unambiguous success. The movement has overshadowed the other anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim groups. Hynek Blaško and Ivan David became the SPD’s new MEPs. The SPD movement is expected to join the Europe-wide faction called Identity and Democracy alongside the National Rally and the Alternative for Germany.”
• “Aeronet continued to publish pieces against the SPD.”
• “Representatives of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement (hereinafter, the ‘SPD’) in particular tried repeatedly to spark anti-Romani sentiment (exploiting the term ‘inadaptables’ during their official presentations).”
• “The chair of the SPD movement also presented the opinion that the (coronavirus) pandemic is being abused in western countries to introduce the euthanasia of senior citizens. According to him, the aim is to annihilate seniors as advocates of traditional values and replace them with aggressive immigrant populations.”
• “Some media outlets, in particular the public broadcaster Czech Television, were subjected to very intensive criticism. The chair of the Prague organization of the SPD called, for example, for the ‘defenestration’ of the leadership of that public broadcast institution.”
• “Former SPD secretary Jaroslav Staník failed in his appeal to the Supreme Court against the verdict convicting him of making remarks in which he proposed shooting down ‘fags and lesbians’ and sending homosexuals, Jews and Roma to the gas chambers. Police have asked the Chamber of Deputies to strip a female MP from the SPD of immunity for her remarks about migrants. However, the Committee on Mandates and Immunity and the Chamber of Deputies itself did not do so.”

In its report for the second half of 2020, the actions of Okamura and his SPD are again described as in the same vein as those of “populist, xenophobic entities”:

• “In addition to neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist subjects, several other populist, xenophobic groups were active during the period under review. These entities, however, have not managed to unite, the fragile alliances concluded through social media have fallen apart. The unambiguously dominant role has been played by the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement (hereinafter the SPD). Ahead of the regional elections, the SPD defined itself in opposition to other entities also accenting ‘patriotic’ subject matter. Okamura’s movement defended its leading position in the elections, winning 6.13 % of the vote and 35 seats total. The other entities with a similar profile did not succeed.”
• “Adherents and members of some of the less significant xenophobic entities, which previously did not much trust the SPD and wanted an ‘ethnically more appropriate’ politician at the head of the ‘pro-national opposition’, have started to change their opinion over time.”
• “During the period under review, several ‘patriotic meetings’ were held in which extremely nationalist activists and politicians participated. Those events confirmed the trend of fragmentation into dogmatic ideologies which politicians from various parts of the political spectrum have encountered in the name of ‘protecting national interests’. In some cases, representatives of the SPD attended such meetings. As a rule, they got publicity from the alternative media for doing so.”

Sympathy for Vladimir Putin

The year 2021 demonstrated that pointing the finger at the media or the political competition does not necessarily go unpunished:

• “Representatives of populist, xenophobic entities including Freedom and Direct Democracy and the new group ‘Free Block’ (Volný blok – see below) disseminated groundless allegations from the media outlets purveying disinformation. They frequently belittled the Vrbětice scandal.“
• “The District Court for Prague 1 decided that the chair of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement, Tomio Okamura, must apologize for his untrue remarks about MEPs Zdechovský and Svoboda from 2017 who, in his view, voted to sanction the Czech Republic for not receiving migrants. Zdechovský and his family subsequently were targeted with threats and required police protection. Okamura appealed the verdict.“
• “The High Court in Prague ruled with full effect that the chair of the movement must apologize for his remarks about the HlídacíPes.org website. Okamura had called it ‘fraudulent’.”
• “The District Court for Praha – západ has sentenced an assistant to MP Jaroslav Foldyna, Michal Kraft, for inciting hatement against a group and its individual members and inciting the restriction of their rights and freedoms by making remarks against migrants, for which he has been fined CZK 30,000 [EUR 1,200]. If he refuses to pay, he will have to serve 60 days’ imprisonment. The verdict was then upheld by the Municipal Court in Prague.“
• “The dominant position [among the xenophobic projects] was unambiguously maintained by the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement (hereinafter, the SPD) which won 20 seats in the elections to Parliament with 9.56 % (513,910 votes). The movement’s campaign was relatively restrained. Representatives of the movement were aware that they have long been building up an established political force that also has an international reach.”
• “The chair of the SPD, Tomio Okamura, published an apology to the Institute for Independent Journalism, which runs news server HlídacíPes.org, on his Facebook profile. The High Court in Prague had ordered him to apologize for a remark in which he called the server fraudulent and a ‘media cesspool’.”
• “Police investigated a meeting of regional-level Romani politicians in a restaurant in the Česká Lípa area where aggressive remarks were made about Tomio Okamura. The local office of the prosecutor sent the case to the local municipality to be handled as a misdemeanor.”

In the year 2022, the experts at the ministry recorded Okamura’s double “about-faces” on Ukraine and his ongoing attempts to present himself and the SPD as a “normal political entity”.

• “The Freedom and Direct Democracy movement (hereinafter the SPD) said before Russia’s full-fledged invasion that Ukraine wanted to provoke a war with Russia with NATO’s assistance. Tomio Okamura wrote that: ‘Fiala, Lipavský and Černochová are not defending the interests of the Czech Republic, but of Brussels and Washington, and they are blinded by hate and the desire to go to war.’ After Russia invaded its neighbor, however, the SPD issued a statement calling it a violation of international law. The movement’s members in the lower house supported resolutions condemning Russian aggression in February and again in April. However, over time the movement started returning to the line that serves representatives of the Kremlin. For example, the movement advocated cancelling supplies of ammunition and arms to Ukraine although it is greatly outgunned by Russia; incited the Czech public against refugees from Ukraine; and continued its attacks on the EU. On 25 June, SPD legislators did not vote in favor of a resolution supporting the territorial integrity of Ukraine and condemning the Russian Federation’s aggression. In their statements, representatives of the SPD continued their traditional mentions of Muslim immigrants, claiming they want to protect the Czech public from their alleged criminality. Okamura, in accordance with Kremlin statements calling the war a ‘special military operation’ with the alleged aim of ‘denazifying’ Ukraine, called the country a ‘hotbed of neo-Nazis’. The SPD movement also criticized the blocking measures targeting media outlets purveying disinformation which have been reporting on the Russian aggression in a deceptive, manipulative manner.”
• “Okamura failed with his appeal to the Supreme Court against a High Court judgment ordering him to apologize for calling news server HlídacíPes.org fraudulent and a ‘media cesspool’.”
• “The Municipal Court in Prague confirmed in an appeal proceeding that Okamura lied about the politicians Tomáš Zdechovský and Pavel Svoboda when he claimed they had voted in their role as MEPs for sanctions against the Czech Republic for not receiving immigrants. According to the judgment, Okamura must apologize to them on his Facebook profile. Both men were targeted with threats as a consequence of Okamura’s lies.”
• “The District Court for Prague 4 sentenced ex-MP Miloslav Rozner (SPD) to six months in prison suspended for one year for felony denial, doubting, approval of and justification of genocide. Rozner committed this crime by making remarks in which he called the camp at Lety a ‘non-existant pseudo-concentration camp’.”
• “The prosecutor filed an indictment for denying, doubting, approving of and justifiying genocide against the Bruntál municipal assembly member Daniel Makay (SPD) for his remarks about Vladimir Putin’s ‘excellent strategy’.”
• “In the second half of 2022, the Czech Republic had to face many economic, political and social problems which were fertile ground for extremist and xenophobic groups. However, these entities did not manage to take sufficient advantage of the opportunities available. With the exception of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement, these domestic groups can be considered marginal. As a rule these are groups with limited reach or function for a limited period of time. They are also frequently limited by their mutual disputes.”
• “The local elections again proved that the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement has no competition in the Czech ‘pro-national scene’. Movement representatives are aware of their exclusive position and are carefully guarding it. Competing ‘patriotic’ activists are attempting in some cases to create an alternative to the movement of Tomio Okamura. As a rule, though, they are not politically successful and gradually end up being forgotten.”
• “In the period under review, the representatives of the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement put xenophobic subject matter on the back burner. They dedicated themselves to criticizing the Government and its domestic and foreign policies as a priority.”
• “The war on Ukraine became a strong subject for the movement. For example, in a television interview, Tomio Okamura said he does not know who actually launched the war. When the moderator asked whether Russia’s attack had been caused by the necessity of protecting ethnic Russians there, Okamura said that ‘there may be some truth to that’.”
• “Movement politicians are absolutely clear about Government support for Ukraine to defend itself. Okamura called Government representatives ‘warmongers’, MP Jiří Kobza wrote that the Government is ‘treasonous’ and the handmaids of ‘bankers across the ocean’, etc. Kobza also accused ‘journalist prostitutes’ or ‘unsatisfied, power-hungry bitches’ of endeavoring to pull the Czech Republic and Europe into war.”
• “Lawmakers from the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement nominated Jaroslav Bašta as their candidate in the presidential election. The chair of the movement said he is ‘the only one who wants to dismiss Prime Minister Fiala and his Government.’ In an attempt to win the support of voters dissatisfied with the current Government, Okamura presented the unconstitutional opinion that the President has such ‘unconditional’ power.”
• “The District Court in Bruntál fined Bruntál local assembly member Daniel Makay (SPD) CZK 45,000 [EUR 1,775] for his remarks about Vladimir Putin’s ‘excellent strategy’ in the war on Ukraine, which he followed up by, for example, recommending he use a hydrogen bomb. The sentence for denying, doubting, approving of and justifying genocide was also upheld by the Regional Court in Ostrava.“

A fascist movement

In 2023 the Interior Ministry dedicated comparatively little space to Okamura and the SPD in the extremism report. The report for the second half of the year does not mention the movement once. The following citations are from the report for the first half of 2023:

• “Most of the xenophobic groups which sprang up in response to the migration crisis in 2014–2015 have lost their significance or no longer exist. The only constant on that scene is the Freedom and Direct Democracy movement. In the period under review, it drew attention for its contacts with the representatives of Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, specifically with its Junge Alternative youth movement. Germany’s Federal Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution has called that party ‘suspicious’ for its ties to right-wing extremism and has directly called its youth organization a right-wing extremist entity.”
• “The Municipal Court in Prague rejected a libel suit by the [SPD] movement in February against the weekly RESPEKT. That media outlet has called the movement ‘fascist’.”