The term, extremism should be understood as activities having as a rule, a clear-cut ideological context which deviates markedly from the rule of law, constitutional law, shows explicit elements of intolerance and attacks democratic principles and the social order. It is not interchangeable with expressions such as “terrorist“, “criminal“ etc. It is a common term for extremely pointed and hostile attitudes towards democratic systems, which act destructively, and whether directly or in terms of their long-term consequences, against the existing democratic political and economic system. In other words, they endeavour to replace the democratic system with an antagonistic one (a totalitarian regime, dictatorship, or anarchy). Thus the Report uses a unified term of extremism for activities aimed at the destruction of a constitutional establishment and the values which such a system protects. Extremism usually uses the following instruments: historical revisionism, social demagogy, activism, verbal and physical violence against its opponents and against clearly defined social groups, and conspirator theories. The world literature on politics usually distinguishes left-wing from right-wing extremism, as well as religious, environmental and (in some cases) nationalistic extremism. The last three forms have not appeared in their clear, unambiguous form in the Czech Republic. The explanation is therefore focused on right-wing extremists (inspired by and predominantly using national, racial, and ethnical hatred, and demonstrating their sympathy for historical fascism and Nazism) and left-wing extremists (motivated mainly by social, anti-cultural hatred, having a liking for historical communism and anarchy). A further explanation illustrates that sometimes it is difficult to find a criterion for these types of extremism. Some political scientists cast doubt upon the term, ”extremism”, and they point out that using this term can simplify the whole matter. Similarly, while describing an extremist scene, the meaningfulness of right-left optics can be considered.2 Although such thoughts might be interesting and stimulating, we find it necessary to introduce and use the above-mentioned term in this kind of report – a discussion on more suitable terms can be held simultaneously at the academic level.
Under the term crime motivated by racial, national or other social hate, it is understood as conduct which fulfils the signs of the factual basis of a crime or misdemeanour and is a priori motivated by hatred arising from race, nationality, religion, class or another social group to which the attacked belongs. A specific type that could be included in this crime category is a crime against the symbols or representatives of an existing social system if it is a priori motivated by hatred against it. The following crimes should be taken into consideration:
The amendment to Criminal Code No. 405/200 Coll. was adopted in 2000. This amendment came into force on 1 December 2000 and it altered the provisions of Sections 260 (1) and 261, and in addition a new provision, Section 261(a), was inserted (it has introduced punishment for so-called Jachymov and Auswitz lies).
As a synonym of a term ”crime motivated by racial, national or other social hatred”3 the Report uses the working term ”crime with an extremist subtext”. In terms of this expression it is necessary to say explicitly that offenders of such crimes definitely are not automatically supporters of extremist organisations. On the contrary, in a majority of such crimes it is not possible to prove any relation between the crime with the above-mentioned motivation and a certain organisation ranking among the extremist spectrum. We can rather state that these are phenomena existing side by side with mutual interferences. However, both phenomena originate from similar pathological conditions and both of them impact, though with a different intensity, such similar values protected by the constitution, social integrity, etc. Therefore, the Report pays attention to the aforementioned kind of crime. So-called crime with an extremist subtext, as it is described herein, is very often a consequence of a certain extreme situation and in a number of cases it can be objectively doubted whether the attack was really motivated by hatred against a certain group of people or whether it was just an external manifestation of poor interpersonal relations in the actual context.