CZECH COURT BANS EXTREME-RIGHT WORKERS PARTY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRAGUE 000092 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/18/2020 TAGS: PGOV GM EZ SUBJECT: CZECH COURT BANS EXTREME-RIGHT WORKERS PARTY REF: A. 09 PRAGUE 310 ¶B. 09 PRAGUE 386 ¶C. 09 PRAGUE 454 ¶D. 09 PRAGUE 727 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Mary Thompson-Jones for reasons 1.4 (b ) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: On February 17, the Czech Supreme Administrative Court banned the extreme-right Workers Party (DS),saying that the party represents a threat to democracy. This is the first time the court has banned a political party for its political activities since the fall of communism in 1989. The party has the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court within 30 days, and DS Leader Tomas Vandas said the party would do so. There have been numerous clashes between the Workers Party and the police in recent years. The effect of the ban is likely to be little more than symbolic. Party members will still find a way to run in May parliamentary elections, although they will not garner enough votes to enter Parliament. Nonetheless, the push for the ban by the Fischer government shows its commitment to fighting extremism, and may serve as a warning to extreme-right groups that they cannot act without limits. End Summary. -------------- Quashing the Party -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Czech law bans parties that aim to eliminate the democratic principles of the state, or to suppress the equality of citizens, or whose programs threaten citizens' rights and liberties. The government has twice pursued efforts to ban the DS. In March 2009, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed an attempt to ban the party by the former coalition government led by PM Mirek Topolanek, ruling the evidence was insufficient to prove the party was a true threat to democracy. Political leaders, analysts, and NGOs criticized this first attempt for its lack of detail. In response, Interior Minister Martin Pecina of PM Jan Fischer's interim government introduced a new, more comprehensive proposal to ban the DS in September 2009. -------------- The Trial and the Ruling -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The hearing before the Supreme Administrative Court began on January 11 and lasted four days. The government called the party "racist, violent, and xenophobic" and spent much of its time describing the DS's views and connections to other right-wing organizations. Police experts on extremism also testified for the government. The government argued that the DS was linked to the unregistered Czech neo-Nazi organization National Resistance through joint participation in public events and from references to the DS on the website odpor.org, which endorses National Resistance. The government attempted to tie DS members to neo-Nazi events, showing pictures of alleged members wearing Nazi symbols and giving the Hitler salute. Some DS members have been prosecuted in the past for supporting and promoting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms, the government testified. The Qntroversial battle between the DS, Roma, and the police in November 2008 in a majority-Roma neighborhood in Litvinov also formed part of the testimony. Finally, the government's attorney, Tomas Sokol, focused on the party's youth organization, the Workers' Youth, noting its program includes the statement "our country belongs to us alone, not to immigrants and people of different nationalities." ¶4. (SBU) DS leader Tomas Vandas represented the 950-member party in court. He said there was no reason the party should not cooperate with Germany's right-wing National Democratic Party (NPD),noting that the NPD was legally registered in Germany. He did not distance the party from a claim by a speaker at a DS event that the current system is "full of Zionists" but did say that nowhere in the DS program is the word "Zionism" mentioned. Vandas submitted clean criminal records for some members but said he does not screen potential members. ¶5. (SBU) The court ruled that the party's program contains xenophobia, chauvinism, homophobia and a racist subtext, spreads fears of foreigners, and creates feelings of danger. Supreme Administrative Court Presiding Judge Vojtech Simicek said the DS uses ideas and symbols from Hitler's National Socialism. He said the party's program is extremist and represents a threat to democracy. -------------- A Range of Responses PRAGUE 00000092 002 OF 002 -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Leading politicians, including ODS Chair Mirek Topolanek and CSSD Chair Jiri Paroubek, lined up to support the court's decision. Interior Minister Pecina said that the ruling confirmed that the judiciary will not tolerate movements, groups, or parties that jeopardize the country's democratic system. Vandas, for his part, said that the ban was without merit and simply an attempt to eliminate political competition. (Note: The Workers Party is more organized than it once was, winning one percent of the vote in the June 2009 European Parliament elections, which qualified the party for state funding for the first time. No analysts, however, expected the DS to cross the five percent threshold necessary to enter Parliament. End Note.) ¶7. (C) Analysts had a more restrained reaction. Miroslav Mares of Masaryk University in Brno, an extremism expert, dismissed the ban as symbolic, telling poloffs that a ban does not address the greater problem of a "general level of extremist violence" in the country. Mares said there are two strains in the DS. The first strain consists of members in their 40s and 50s who formerly belonged to the 1990s-era extreme-right Republican Party led by Miroslav Sladek. The second strain includes younger, more militant members. It is this latter group that Mares worries about, saying that they, and other members of the right-wing movement, may become more militant as a result of the ban. Nonetheless, Mares told the press that the state has now defined the boundaries within which the extreme-right movement can act. Analyst Zdenek Zboril of Charles University told journalists that the verdict served as a warning for the extreme right regarding its aggressive public behavior. ¶8. (SBU) The press criticized the ban attempt during the trial. Daniel Kaiser of Lidove Noviny said that although the DS should be condemned for its activities, he opposed the ban on the party, saying that just because a party supports capital punishment and opposes immigration does not mean it should be banned. Jiri Leschtina of Hospodarske Noviny criticized Vandas for denying ties between the DS and the National Resistance, but said that the party does not represent a threat to democracy since it has almost no chance to enter Parliament. A state should tolerate parties that advocate undesirable views if they do not threaten democracy, said Leschtina. Following the trial, Leschtina wrote that current political parties in parliament are the main threat to democracy, not extremists. Martin Komarek of Mlada Fronta Dnes called the decision a blow to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly. In contrast, Peter Uhl of Pravo considered the decision a legal victory. -------------- Next Steps -------------- ¶9. (SBU) The party has the right to file an appeal to the Constitutional Court within 30 days. If it does so, said Presiding Judge Simicek, the DS ban would be temporarily suspended. Vandas told the press that the party would certainly appeal. Depending upon how quickly the Constitutional Court acts, DS members may still be able to run in the May parliamentary elections under the DS banner. If the Constitutional Court upholds the ban before the elections, the DS members could establish a new party or run as members of another party. Meanwhile, the court has appointed attorney Radslav Janecek to liquidate the party's assets. This process is expected to take several months. ¶10. (C) Comment: The impact of the DS ban is limited. If the DS loses its Constitutional Court appeal, party members will likely find a way to run for Parliament and local offices. Moreover, the decision does nothing to address the general level of extremist violence in the country that extremism expert Mares worries about. The ban does demonstrate the Fischer government's commitment to fighting extremism, however, and may serve as a warning to the country's numerous extreme-right groups. End Comment. Thompson-Jones