The evaluation of how the assignments contained in the Annex to Government Resolutions No. 720/1999 and No. 684/2000 are met is included in the individual chapters of this report. The wording of any assignment is always stated in the relevant footnote.
Although in an ideal right-left model, left-wing and right-wing extremism represent opposite poles, the reality is more complicated since the role is also played by social, cultural and historical context on the background of which there are manifestations of those ideal types. And this leads to the fact that these opposite poles can show manifestations in individual areas of anti-constitutional conduct with very different intensity and people can perceive such socially dangerous conduct with different sensitivity.
It is similar to so-called “hate crimes, which is a term used in Anglo-American criminology
The Security Intelligence Service has constantly fulfilled the task contained in item 5 of the Annex to Government Resolution No. 720/1999 (“To create an updated list of individual extremist organisations operating in the Czech Republic, including an estimation of the numbers of their members and supporters, and to monitor their cooperation with foreign extremist groups“), as well as the task on the basis of Government Resolution No. 648/2000 imposed on the Director of the Security Intelligence Service and on the Minister of the Interior To submit summary information within the Report on the Issue of Extremism on findings concerning civic associations, political parties and political movements, as well as other organisation registered with the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Culture respectively, if their activities showed extremist manifestations or if their activities directly contradict any laws. These are ongoing tasks.
The scientists in the area of politics working at Masaryk University in Brno pay attention to the issues of the Czech extremist scene to a greater extent. They prepare, for example, articles on the web sites of the Central European Studies of Political Sciences, in the Journal of Political Studies, and in a journal called Analyzy a studie (Analyses and Studies), published by the Institution of Strategic Studies of Masaryk University.
In no event is this situation specific only to the Czech Republic, which can be proven by using the findings from foreign countries. There are right-wing extremist political parties or various organisations in a number of European countries. To this end we can mention e.g. the British National Party (BNP) in Great Britain, the Front National (FN) in France or the Nationaldemokratischen Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in Germany. The NPD is the best example of how complex and difficult it is for state authorities to take action against activities of such an entity. The decision made by the German government to initiate the dissolution of the NDP, which by its “racist, anti-Semitic, anti-peace campaign, repetition of nationalistic thoughts aggrieved the reputation of Germany abroad“, was accompanied by the detailed analysis of NPD activities. Although this analysis substantiates NPD activities and contains a range of arguments for its dissolution, this case has not been closed yet and NPD has not been dissolved yet.
See Annex No. 1 : Conclusions of the Committee for Eliminating Racial Discrimination. The Czech Republic. Comments and Recommendations, (point 11) adopted on the 1419th meeting held on 11 August 2000. This procedure was also reflected by the Government in its Resolution No. 1225 from 15 November 1999 concerning the Report on Meeting the Commitments of the International Convention on Eliminating All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Report deals with civic associations which are suspected by the Security Intelligence Service of performing subversive activities. Many of their attitudes can be, anyway, substantiated from open sources, internal materials, etc.
The overview of the NR members and their characteristic see: http://nasilnici.euweb.cz/, downloaded on 11 January 2001. Namely there are 16 members - NR activists - including the photographs.
The same web site.
Activist R.Š. participated in three attacks: he was notified of charges of being suspected to be an assisting offender in an attack on 16 November 2000 under Section 202(1) and under Section 9(2 ) of the Criminal Code; on 15 November 2000 - he was notified of charges under Sections 221(1), 8(1) 222(1), 202(1) and as an accomplice under Section 9(2) of the Criminal Code; on 28 October 2000, he was notified of charges under Sections 221(1), 8(1) 222(1), 202(1) and as an accomplice under Section 9(2) of the Criminal Code. In this last case he was investigated while in custody.
Combat 18 - the British extreme right wing organisation supporting terrorism, was established in 1992 and the estimated number of members is 50 -100.
See
http://www.vlast.cz/n_strana.html Downloaded on 24 October 2000. The editorial board of Vlast (i.e..Country) at the beginning of November 2000 refused to be labelled as a “party“ journal of the National Party. The Board dissociated from this by stating that after mutual agreement the National Party only hired pages in the journal and on the web sites of “Vlast“. See
http://www.vlast.cz/vznik_ns.htm Downloaded on 6 November 2000
Proposals for registration of the National Party were simultaneously submitted in April 2001 by two preparatory committees. The procedure of registration has not been commenced yet due to legal impediment.
In August 1999 the fourth, and at the same time the last, volume of Vlajka was published. “The reason for stopping the publication of this two-monthly journal came from political pressures from the Ministry of the Interior and the Castle,“ the NA stated in its commentary.
Regarding this the NA refers its members and supporters to the newly established civic association APPP - the Association Protecting the Politically Prosecuted, having its seat in Ostrava, which is planning “a large petition action to repeal the totalitarian sections of 260 and 261“ and calls all members and supporters to distribute the sheets and to collect signatures. See
http://www.volny.cz/narod/vyzva4.html Downloaded on 13 November 2000. Vyzva No. 4.. See also http://www.volny.cz/narod/aktu.html Downloaded on 28 March 2001. The National Alliance. Actual information: Support the Petition of the APPP.
In 2000 the preparatory committee of the National Social Alliance (NSA) collected the number of signatures required by the relevant Act and submitted the application for registration of a political party - the NSA. Its registration was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior. See 7.2 Activities of the Ministry of the Interior and the Police of the Czech Republic.
According to NA data, the candidates of this Party received 0.21% of the votes in the Central Bohemian Region (ie. 608), and 0.40% of the votes in the Region of Karlovy Vary (264). See http:/www.cz/narod/vyzva5.html. Downloaded on 28 March 2001.
See
http://www.volny.cz/v.r.s/vrs.html Downloaded on 15 November 2000. “At our place - according to us“ The Patriotic Republican Party. Last updated on 17 April 2000
The programme objectives included the following topics: the new Constitution of the Czech Republic, foreign policy, security and justice, state's security, national economy, privatisation, private businesses, restitutions, agriculture and countryside, transport, social policy, the health care system, the woman's position in society, policy concerning flats, environment, education, youth and sports, culture, religious and the sate, stopping development of neo-communism after 1989. See
http://www.volny.cz/v.r.s./program.html Downloaded on 13.11.2000. The Complete Political Programme of the Patriotic Republican Party. The Agreement with the Citizens.
See the same web sites. The Patriotic Front introduces itself. What we want. Protect the interests of the Czech nation with us! Why is the Patriotic Front objected to?
See the same web sites. Little Czech Kosovo.
See Chapter 7.2. Activities of the Ministry of the Interior and the Police of the Czech Republic. In spite of the fact that the registration of its modified statutes was rejected by the Ministry of the Interior (and therefore the changed name of the Patriotic Republic Party to the National Social Block), this party presents itself publicly as the National Social Block, which legally does not exist.
See
http://www.republikani.cz. We and Europe. Downloaded on 25 June 2001. Euronat (established in 1997) and its satellite youth organisation Euronat Jeunesse (established in 1998 on the occasion of 14th summer university organised by Front National de la Jeunesse, which is a satellite organisation of Le Pen's Front National) represent a free association of extreme national European political parties, chaired informally by a French nationalist, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The objective of this association is mainly to coordinate a joint procedure of these political parties against European policy and Euro-Atlantic Security integration. An attempt to establish a Europe opposed to the USA and a Europe of nations rank among the basic objectives of the Euronat association. A Europe of nations is declared by the Euronat as an alternative to a unified Europe. The Euronat ideologically professes the resistance against globalisation. The political parties associated in the Euronat, inter alia, endeavour to set up a new national right-wing in the European Parliament after elections, which are to be held in 2004. Also, the chairman of the former AFR -CRP used to be mentioned in connection with the Euronat. The ideological principals of the Euronat Jeunesse are identical with the principals declared by the Euronat. The First assembly of the Euronat Jeunesse was held in September 1998 in Madrid, another one was organised in Rome in the same year. In May 1999, the National Youth Holiday was organised in Paris under the auspices of Euronat Jeunesse.
See http://www. republikani.cz/Prázdná%20stránka%204.htm Downloaded on 8 February 2001
Viz Martin Bastl, Anarchismus v České Republice (Anarchism in the Czech Republic). In: Středoevropské politologické studie, vol. 4, 2000, No. 4.
http://www.iips.cz/cisla/texty/komentare/anarch400.html. CAF was established in. 1995. In. 1996 a Moravian syndicate group, Solidarity, separated from the CAF and became a base for the Organisation of revolutionary Anarchist Solidarity (ORAS). In 1997 another group of activists left the CSAF and founded the Federation of Social Anarchists (FSA).
After a long-term member of the CSAF had left, the International Secretariat of the CSAF came apart and therefore this organisation has not become a members of the International Anarchist Federation yet (IAF)
In March 2001 there was a text on the web sites of the CPC announcing that at the XX Extraordinary Congress of the CPC held in Bruntal an authentic Marxist-Leninist communist party was establish on 24 February 2001 under the name the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia - Czechoslovak Party of Work (CPC-CPW). This party dissociates itself from the opportunistic, revisionist and unprincipled policy of parties using the name communist - in other words from the CPBM and the then, since this date does not exist, Stepan's management of the CPC. A new executive committee was elected at the Congress and Ludvik Zifcak became its chairman. The proceedings on registration of the changes made in the Statues submitted to the Ministry of the Interior on 14 March 2001 was closed on 21 June 2001 by the decision taken by the Ministry of the Interior to reject the registration of the changes made in the Statutes. In a new wording of the programme objectives expressed in the Statues submitted, the party accepted the application of Marxist-Leninist view. The Ministry of the Interior believes that the Party does not respect the values defined in Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and in provisions of Section 4 of Act No. 424/1991 Coll. In reaction to this decision, the party decided to use a remedy and appealed to the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic.
See
http://www.mujweb.cz/www/uv_ksc/sjezd.htm Before the Communist Youth of Czechoslovakia came into existence (CYC) M. Stepan excluded L. Zigcak from the PCC (as a consequence, the CYC was established); now the situation is turned upside down. The Moravian part of the PCC/KPC was always more radical and dissatisfied with the “slower“ Stepan.
A journal called Dialog - questions - answers is not an official paper of the CPC (it is the Jiskra, i.e. Sparkling), but the journal presents views close to this Party. Its open principal objective is, of course, to reverse the situation in the parliamentary KPBM in favour of open supporters of the historical Marxist-Leninist political conception of the party.
For more information see Miroslav Mareš, Sjednocená fronta (ie. Unified Front). In: Analýzy a studie 4, 3/2001, The Institution of Strategic Studies at Masaryk University in Brno.
See Špígl, vol. 12, No. 90, 17 April 2001: “The VIII Pan-Slav Congress 2001 in Moscow. Slavs must defend themselves against enslavement from the side of world imperialists“; Špígl, vol. 12, No. 91, 18 April. 2001: “The Czechs had a decisive word. Observations from the VIII. Pan-Slav Congress VIII.“ According to this article the Congress came to the following conclusions: “1. Slavs having 300 million inhabitants represent in the world a great force which must be used; 2. Instead of dividing Slavs and integrating and dissolving them into non-Slav global organisations (NATO, the EU) to create a unified Slav alternative to such associations, and thus to protect Slav culture as well as languages; 3. The Congress denounced the bombing of Yugoslavia as a war crime of NATO and the USA, and proposes bring the offenders to the International Court Tribunal; 4. The Congress unambiguously stood behind setting Ex-President s. Miloschevic free and expressed against interference by the NATO countries with the internal matters of Yugoslavia; 5. The Congress supports unification of Slavs, first of all of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and wishes this unification to come true by the next Congress. This is the only way how to prevent the destruction of Slav nations.“
People´s Global Action (PGA) is an international anarcho-autonomous, anti-capitalistic and anti-globalisation movement established in 1998 which, however, remains in background. It has become a principal source of anti-globalisation activities. It has neither any organisation nor a central office. It has only the coordination of the Convenors Committee. This committee consists of 12 activists from states determined in advance; the activists from the Czech Republic are not represented. The PGA enforces “confrontational attitudes“ as an author of the idea of a “street party“.
Independent Media Centre (IMC) was set up during the demonstrations in Seattle in November 1999 as an “independent and democratic group of journalists and politically conscious individuals from all the world“. This group is made up of about 50 persons. During actions, it is extended by volunteer street “co-workers“ who are responsible for collecting data. The IMC is well organised and therefore it is highly operable.
The principal task of the INPEG is to facilitate a kind of a base for protest activities, i.e. accommodation, required material, press and meeting centres and medial campaign.
In May 2000 representatives of PGA met representatives of INPEG, in June 2000 there was a three-day European Co- in Prague which was attended by about 50 foreign delegates and 20 activists of IMPEG. In August 2000 there was another meeting with foreign activists. There were approximately 60 - 100 persons.
Left-wing extremist Italian association YA BASTA came into existence at the end of the 90s as a committee supporting initiatives of Mexican organisation “Zapatist Army“ for national liberation. One of the objectives is a fight against neo-liberalism- (A term neo-liberalism serves to name a current Western political and economic system, mainly because of the principal elements of this system: democracy and free market.)
The most radical anarchist groups adhering to the tactics of so-called “direct action“ formed a “blue stream“. The organisers of protests knew very well about their militant features and inclination towards violence. Therefore this “blue stream“ received the task of penetrating the police blockades of the access to the location of the meeting and opening the “door to this place“.
The protest actions of the remaining activists on 27 - 29 September were coordinated by a citizen of the USA.
The police inspection bodies received 393 complaints altogether (284 of them were from foreigners), and 70 cases out of them were assessed as legitimate.
See http://www.i-eps.cz/cs/organizace/studie/ophcz/index.htm Jiří Kopal, Martin Prokop, Marek Vesely, The Report on Violance. Activities of the Civic Legal Guards concerning the Annual Meeting of the IMF and the World Bank in Prague in September 2000. Downloaded on 19 April 2001.
It is a status from 24 January 2001.
See Večerník Praha, 27 March.2001, p.2, František Kostlán: “The Protesters Destroyed Property Amounting to 13.5 million“. Further, see Resolution of the City Council of Prague No. 0449 dated on 20 March 2001 concerning the Report on the Security Situation in Prague in 2000.
Squatting and sprays painting involve some elements of extremism, especially when these activities are motivated by a targeted rejection of one of the fundamental rights (the right to property), and the violence of this right is related to an ambition or struggle against or a rejection of the “system“. Frequently there are (mainly when talking about sprayers) social pathological manifestations without any unambiguous extremist hints.
Section 249a
(1) A person who, contrary to the law, occupies or uses another's house, flat or non-residential premises, shall be punished by a term of imprisonment of up to two years or by a pecuniary penalty.
(2) Such punishment shall also be imposed on an offender who prevents an entitled person from using a house, flat or non-residential premises.
This Chapter is processed on the basis of open sources. See the latest information on this issues-Jiri Dvoracek, Sekty a nove nabozenske smery na konci milenia (Sects and Religious Trends at the End of the Millennium) in Kriminalisticky sbornik, No. 1, 20001, p. 36-40; Miloslav Zán, Sekty -aktualni problem (Sects - an actual problem), In: Kriminalisticky sbornik, No. 2, 1999, p. 34-38; Ladislava Kulíková - Lenka Šimková, Sekty nebo nábozenska hnuti? (Sects or new religious movements?), In: Kriminalisticky sbornik, No. 1, 1999, p. 30-36. A lot of pornographic material deals with these issues, which is described from various points of view.
See Chapter 5. The Extremist Scene in the Central European Geopolitical Area. Dangerous religious sects and pseudo-religious organisation issues.
The Society for Sect and New Religious Movement Studies, with its seats in Prague and Brno, and which also co-operates with the Czech police, monitors and watches apparent sects and so-called new religious movements on a long-term basis.
This Chapter was processed with the help of information provided by Criminal Police Headquarters of the Police Presidium of the Czech Republic. The information provided contained an assessment of the situation on the extremist scene and information of regional experts dealing with extremist issues. As a synonym of a term “crime motivated by racial, national or other social hate“ the Report uses a term “crime with an extremist subtext“ (extremist crime/criminality).
The summary term for anarchist, Troskyites, and autonomous attitudes.. Those attitudes possess some common features, however there are some differences which can end up in deep disputes. (A degree of organisation structures and centralisation, relations to the politics, willingness co-operate with extremist organisations of a different type, etc.).
A part of a study - “Interethnic conflicts as a consequence of racial hatred“, prepared by Marketa Stechova PhD. (IKSP Prague) deals with this issue. This empiric part deals with an analysis of offences motivated by racial or national hatred committed in the Czech Republic in 1997 - 1999. The basic selected criterion is that an offender and his/her victim of an office monitored were the members of different ethnic groups. The analysis has been developed with the help of materials of the Ministry of the Interior that have been gradually disclosed in the Reports on the Issue of Extremism.
Annex No. 2A: The Offenders of Crimes with an Extremist Subtext Divided According to the Termination of the Penal Proceedings in the Czech Republic and in the Regions of the Czech Republic in 2000
See Annex No. 2B: The Offenders of Crimes with an Extremist Subtext Divided According to the Age Categories in the Czech Republic and in the Regions of the Czech Republic in 2000
See Annex No. 2C: The Offenders of Crimes with an Extremist Subtext Divided According to their Education in the Czech Republic and in the Regions of the Czech Republic in 2000.
See Annex No.3: The Estimation of the Numbers of Skinhead and Anarcho-Autonomist Supporters in Individual Regions in the Czech Republic by 31 December 2000 (in comparison with 1999). Table.
See Annex No. 3A: The Most Important Cases in terms of the Police of the Czech Republic Committed in the Czech Republic in 2000.
On the terrace of a Motorest they used Nazi greetings and in the following days they attacked P.H and using the words “tschechische schweine“, and D.H., who they injured and caused his incapacity for 21days and over his laying body they took snapshots and shouted “German skinheads“. These crimes were documented and sent do the District State Prosecutor's Office with the proposal to sent the file using the method of legal assistance to Germany, because the following crimes had been committed: support and propagation of movements aimed at suppressing citizens' rights and freedoms pursuant to Sec 260 of the Criminal Code, rowdyism pursuant to Sec. 202(1) of the Criminal Code, and injury to health pursuant to Sec. 221(1) of the Criminal Code. Six of these persons were included in the list of “persona non grata“.
See Annex No. 4: The Number of Crimes with an Extremist Subtext and Their Proportion of the Nation-wide Crimes of This Kind. Table.
See Annex č 5 a-c.: The Crimes of Racial or Other Crimes with an Extremist Subtext Detected in the Czech Republic in 2000 (according to the official criminal statistics). Maps
See Annex No.6: Proportion of Individual Regions in Crimes with an Extremist Subtext in the Czech Republic in 2000. Diagram.
Most frequently the following rude words were used in verbal attacks: “black swine, Gypsies to gas, Heil Hitler, Sieg Heil, Get out of here and go to Toronto, white whores, or fucking policemen“
Gradually, since 1996, there has been a decline in the crimes monitored.
The evaluation is compiled from official criminal statistics, which include only the cases with a final criminal-law qualification; they do not describe all potential offences. These are only districts/areas where 5 or more crimes were committed.
See Annex No.7: Districts/Areas Affected on a Long-term Basis by Extremist Activities (1 January 1996 - 31 December 2000). Map. The areas and districts affected on a long-term basis by crimes of extremist nature were assessed in the document called “The Analysis of the Regions (Areas) Mostly Affected by Crimes with an Extremist Subtext“, the Government took cognisance of it on 19 April 2000. The analysis assesses the years 1996 - 1999 in terms of time periods. The factors, which affected the given condition in those areas were evaluated as follows: composition of population, average age, education structure, unemployment rate, etc. as well as occurrence of various groups or registered organisations having an extremist nature. This analysis proved that accumulation of the aforementioned factors in a district or an area should be considered latently risky. The development in 2000 confirmed those facts.
These facts were also reflected in proving crimes, which became more demanding and more extensive, and therefore negatively impacted the promptness of punishment of offenders committing these crimes. Investigation of such crimes requires expert's opinions - political, historical, sociological and similar opinions from other scientific branches. In 2000, there still were not enough court experts working in these fields.
See Annex No. 8: The Key to the Crimes Mentioned in the Report
This chapter was elaborated on the basis of materials provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office for Foreign Relations and Information.
According to preliminary data published by the Federal Bureau for Constitution Protection in 2000 more than 700 crimes motivated by right-extremism were recorded each month, out of which 250 were aimed against foreigners and 85 were of an anti-Semitic nature.
As the victim died due to the injuries caused by the attack, the crime the offenders were sentenced for murder with a racial subtext. Two juvenile offenders were sentenced to imprisonment for a term of nine years and a major offender was sentenced for life imprisonment. The sentence was pronounced three months after the attack.
Approximately 2,000 persons professed neo-Nazism, the majority of them were members of autonomous units (comradeships) and the number of which was estimated at 150. In some cases comradeships associated in larger action groups.
Approximately 85% of the members of extreme right-wing associations were skinheads, most frequently associated around the organisations Blood & Honour and Hammerskins, most of them are considered to be radical (hard core) racists.
The Federal Government submitted a motion to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe at the end of January 2000 to ban the National Democratic Party of Germany /NPD). On the basis of a political agreement, this initiative was also supported by the Federal Parliament and the Federal Council. The aforementioned discussion reflected concerns whether or not they would meet with no success at the Constitutional Court, which is the only body authorised to express the prohibition of a political party- If the Court found that the strict criteria of a relevant Article of the Constitution were met, they could, on the contrary, promote the party. A sceptical attitude of mainly the Ministers of the Interior of some Provincial Governments to wards Minister Schilly's initiative was based on the concerns that a respective prohibition of the NPD would push the structures of extreme right-wing movements to illegality, which would limit the possibilities of monitoring them and lead to further radicalism.
For example a former deputy of the Hungarian Parliament, Izabella B. Kirasly, who is, i.a., a publisher of the extremist paper Kotott Keve, ranks among significant public defenders of activities of the skinhead movement and in her journal she publishes articled promoting this movement. During the course of 2000, she criticised, István Csurka, the chairman of the Party of Hungarian Justice (MIEP) several times for being too “soft-hearted“ while criticising the right-centre government. In January 2000, this journal presented an article which blamed Jews for enforcing their own interests in the world either in a capitalistic form or in the form of Jewish-Bolshevism.
The extremist conception of policy enforced by the MIEP was fully displayed in March 2000, when during a Parliamentary discussion, I. Csurka marked the pollution of the environment in the Rumanian territory to be a war (without shooting and automatic machine guns) against the Hungarian environment and required its protection against Rumanian exhalations through economic sanctions and even suggested the use of retaliatory military action. In 2000, the MIEP continued insisting on its requirement regarding the revision of the Hungarian national borders, i.e. the revision of the Trianon Treaty. The requirement of Hungarian right-wing extremist, which was put on the table in 2000, to deepen Central European cooperation on the basis of the Visegrad Group probably closes relates to the resistance of right-wing extremists towards European integration.
Allegedly, these skinheads first drive their cars in the street and seek their future victim, then they verify that there are no police patrolling nearby and then they attack enjoying a superiority in numbers.
See Annex No. 9: The Foreign Contacts of the Czech Extremist Scene Detected by the Police of the Czech Republic in 2000. Map. For example, a Czech skinhead journal, Narodni boj (i.e. the National Struggle) is distributed in Slovakia and Slovak skinheads often visit concerts of the Czech groups Vlajka (Flag) and Utok (Attack)
According to available information, the Slovak Solidarity was established in 1996 the members of the skinhead movement.
In November 2000, the Slovak police told citizens not to be afraid of informing the names of policemen who openly support the skinhead movement to the Inspection of the Ministry of the Interior.
Skinheads spoke against immigrants, dark skinned people and against all those “extraneous“. These groups are not so anti-Roma oriented since the Roma community in Poland is smaller than, e.g. in the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Hungary. They distributed some self-published journals (so-called samizdats) (such as the Blood and Honour, the Pagan, the Journal of National Social Youth, the Music of the White Race, Fenix, etc.). They also used fascist slogans and symbols.
This assembly was officially organised by an association called “Not to Europe“, however the majority of participants were skinheads lead by the founder of the Polish National Party (PNP). On 14 November 2000 an investigation related to this demonstration was commenced. It should clear up whether its participants breached laws forbidding public promotion of fascism or if they propagated racism respectively.
According to preliminary data, about 250 crimes motivated by left-wing extremism were committed in Germany every month.
Crimes motivated by left-wing extremism accounted for about 20% of total crimes committed by extremists.
The protesters especially tried to break the train connection to Hannover by burning barricades (e.g. from old tyres) on the railway track. During the grand opening, the police forces managed to hold the demonstrators outside of the exhibition space.
Approximately 500 religious movements conforming to the definition of a sect operated in Germany in 2000.
In 2000, information on the total number of marginal religious groups which include various movements and organisations such as Jehovah's Witnesses or the Church of Scientologists, was disclosed.
Due to the fact that in 2000 information on the infiltration of Scientologists into the structures of UNO was collected, the representatives of France decided to call a working session of the representatives of the European countries for the beginning of 2001 to set up common directives on monitoring this movement.
An additional keyboard to a mobile phone was marketed under the name “Chat board“ by Ericsson. It can be connected more or less to all Ericsson phones in the market.
For example, in 2000 German right-wing-extremist groups managed about 470 web sites.
According to available information these are non-professional yet practical sets of commercially available devices.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs met in this way task No. 6 on an ongoing basis contained in the Annex to Government Resolution No. 720/1999. The Minister of Foreign Affairs together with the Minister of the Interior were responsible for meeting this task. (“To ensure at the international level negotiations that its foreign counterparts are provided with sufficient information on measures adopted by the Czech Government, the Ministry of the Interior and the Czech Police to punish racially and nationally motivated crimes or other kinds of extremist offences and to eliminate all racial discrimination manifestations“).
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs met basis assignment No. 4 on an ongoing contained in the Annex to Government Resolution No. 720/1999. The Minister of the Interior and the Czech Intelligence Service Director, together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, are responsible for meeting this task. (“To monitor, on an ongoing basis, the situation and trends in extremism development in the Czech Republic and in the world with an emphasis on the neighbouring states of the Czech Republic“).
Protocol No.12 deals with the extension of application of Article 14 of the Convention (Prohibition of Discrimination). To date, protection provided under Article 14 with regards to the prohibition of discrimination does not contain a general prohibition of discrimination, it only forbids discrimination in terms of rights and freedoms established by the Convention. The purpose of the Protocol is to regulate the general prohibition of discrimination enabling protection above the frame of the rights and freedoms laid down in the Protocol. The Protocol shall come into force subject to its ratification by ten states of the Council of Europe.
The fundamental purpose of the European Charter is to protect and support historical, regional or minority languages. The objective is to guarantee that regional or minority languages are used in personal or public life, and thus traditions and cultural heritage are developed. The Charter lists a set of measures to support regional or minority languages in public life. These measures cover the following areas: education, the judicial system, activities of administrative bodies and public services, mass media, cultural activities and facilities, economic and social life and co-operation across borders. In relation to each language marked in its ratification, accepted or approved, each contracting party undertakes to apply at least 35 provisions of the Charter. Moreover, each contracting party is obliged in its ratification instrument or in the instrument of adoption to specify each regional or minority language used in the whole territory, or in its part respectively, to which the selected provisions of the Charter shall apply. Therefore, it is possible for each protected language to select a different scope and type of protection.
This world conference will be held in The Republic of South Africa in 2001.
This initiative was extended by the submission of some elements for the conference documents within the informal consultations of the preparatory committee of the World Conference which is to be held on 15 - 16 January 20, 2001.
The Czech Republic was especially criticised sharply in the Report of the Roma National Congress, which marked the situation of Roma in former Yugoslavia, Kosovo and the Czech Republic as specially dangerous and stated that there is systematic and political persecution of Roma movements in those regions. The delegation of the Czech Republic used its right to answer in which it repeated its preparedness to adopt constructive criticism, however, it strictly refused the black and white statements contained in the Report.
The Council of Europe has dealt for a long time with measures to eliminate extremism, particularly within its activities aimed against racism and racial discrimination at the level of the ECRI as well as at the level of the Committee of Ministers (monitoring). The ECRI (the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance) is a specialised body of the Council of Europe and within is competences develops reports on the situation in individual member states and elaborates good practices and general recommendations concerning the elimination of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and intolerance and how to fight against them. It also focuses on the elimination of racism and intolerance against Roma/Gypsies, the experiences of potential victims from individual countries, the elimination of racism and intolerance against Muslims.
See The Second Report on the Czech Republic. Section II: Issues of Particular Concerns (28-50), ECRI Strasbourg 2000. The Report deals with the situation in the Czech Republic until 18 June 1999. The presented analysis, conclusions and recommendations are limited by this date.
See http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000/eur the U.S. State Department. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2000. Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. February 2001. the Czech Republic. From the point of view of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, the Report contains a range of statements which are supported in the text only by estimations instead of actual facts and are thus misleading. For example, the number of deaths caused by racially motivated attacks in 1990 - 1998 (32 instead of 13), the estimated unemployment rate of Roma in and their attendance of special schools which cannot be proved by facts since the Czech legal order does not allow gathering such data relating to ethnical or national minority membership. Information on insufficient medical care or discrimination in housing without any further specification is included as well.
The text pays attention only to the most crucial activities of the Czech Government relating to the issues monitored, since a number of Government's resolutions relate directly to the activities of other departments of the state administration, and their summary in terms of human rights issues is contained in the 2000 Report on the Status of the Human Rights in the Czech Republic, which was approved by Government's resolution No. …. from 9 April 2001. The regular submission of this report resulted from the Annex to Resolution No. 192/1998 related to “The Report on State Strategy in Punishing Criminal Offences Motivated by Racism and Xenophobia or Committed by Supporters of Extremist Groups“. In item 1 (Measures aimed at increasing efficiency in punishing and preventing crimes and misdemeanours arsing from the support, propagation and dissemination of extremist ideologies and attitudes or activities of extremist movements in the Czech Republic and crimes with a racial subtext). The Government required the then Non-departmental Minister (or the Chairman of the Council for National Minorities respectively) to “always provide the Government by 31 March of a relevant calendar year with The Report on the Observation of Human Rights in the Czech Republic. The report was submitted for the first time on 31 March 1999 for the year 1998.“
See 7.2 Activities of the Ministry of the Interior and the Police of the Czech Republic
See Government's Resolution No. 438 from 9 May 2001 related to the Report on the Implementation of the Programme Declaration and on the Activities of the Czech Republic from March 2000 Until Present.
See Annex No. 10: The Overview of Assignments of a Permanent Nature Resulting from Government's Resolutions No. 720/1999, No. 684 /2000, and No. 498/2001.
This Analysis was developed on the basis of official criminal statistics, police operative findings, unofficial and not complete materials of Roma advisors from individual districts, statistical data of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the Czech Statistical Office. The rate of how individual regions were affected by crime with an extremist subtext in 1997 - 1999 was researched by using a projection of factors causing crime of extremism in a respective territories (activities of both registered and unregistered organisations or groups proclaiming racial and other extremist ideas and concentration of their supporters and members, mainly skinheads, including organisation of rallies, concerts, demonstrations, etc.) in combination with the fundamental social and economic factors typical for a respective territory (age structure of inhabitants, unemployment rate, age and education of job-applicants, concentration of the Roma population)
The elaboration of this information resulted from Government's Resolution No. 599 dated 14 June 2000, which is in related to the Government's Strategy Towards the Roma Community Members Assisting in Their Integration (item 2b of the Annex to this Resolution). The Government's members took cognisance of this Information on 15 November 2000
None of the official statistical outputs contains special statistical data regarding Roma as victims or offenders of the crime monitored.. The database of the Ministry of the Interior contains descriptions of individual acts including the date, locations, exact place and time of an attack, as well as the way it was committed, information on offenders and victims, their age and other circumstances. From the wordings of such descriptions it is possible to specify in more details victims of crimes, including Roma or foreigners. It is generally known that in the census in 1999 34 000 persons declared their nationality as Roma. Thus the Roma nationality is in the majority of cases merely declaratory when the victim him/herself states that he/she was attacked because of his/her Roma nationality.
Such training courses have continued in 2001.
The Government adopted a Resolution on 13 December 1999 related to the Strategy of Integration of Foreigners. This Resolution set out the implementing principles of foreigners' integration in the Czech Republic and focused on preparing and implementing this Strategy in 2000. Through this Resolution the Government assigned the amount of CZK 13,900 thousand to meet the assignments arising from such implementing principles of the integration strategy in 2000. This amount was used mainly to support related projects at the central, regional and local levels, related to individual communities of foreigners and technical studies concerning the issues of foreigners' integration in the Czech Republic.
The first two seminars under the name “Police Work in the Area of National Minority Protection“ were held on 7 - 9 and 12-14 March 2000 in Cervena upon Vltava.
The participants unambiguously agreed on further cooperation within the topics discussed in the course of this seminar. The Slovak party proposed that the meetings of an ad hoc working party be organised in turn in other V4 countries.
At the end of 2000, altogether 63 preventative information groups were established with the District and City Headquarters and the regional administration of the Czech Police. At the same time there are six police advisory centres for the public.
Some of those contributions can be mentioned here: “Some Characteristic Features of Members and Supporters of Extremist Movements“, The Word of the Police President: “Extremisms“, “Inclination to Extremisms and Its Roots“, or “The Word of the Police President: The Event of the Century (the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Meeting).“
In 2000, the Czech representative was elected as the first Vice-Chairman of this body.
The instruction of the Minister of the Interior No. 33 from 30 April 1999 for the extension of the punishment for and prevention of crimes and misdemeanours of a racial or extremist nature. The binding instruction of the Police President No. 70 from 23 June 1999 that regulated the activities of the Czech police members in their fight against extremist crimes and which in its Article 6 also defines the assignment of experts in the field of fan violence. The instruction of the Director of the Bureau of Investigation of the Czech Republic No. 2 from 1 June 1999, which determines the organisation for investigation of crimes motivated by racism.
16 policemen from the candidate countries and the trainers from EU countries participated in each module.
This project has continued in 2001 as well.
plk. JUDr. Jan Chmelik, Extremismus (Extremism), Prague 1997 (First published), 2001 (2ne extended impression); the same author: Symbolika extremistických hnutí (The Symbols of Extremist Movements) TRIVIS, Prague 2000.
The assignment contained in the item 7 of the Annex to Government Resolution No. 720/1999 was being fulfilled on an ongoing basis. The Government instructed the Minister of Justice to “constantly monitor the speed and smoothness of court proceedings related to the crimes of extremist nature, and provided that the inspection finds more serious failure, to take into account the option of using an extraordinary remedy - a complaint for violating the law“. This is a permanent assignment.
This trend does not fully correspond to the data of police statistics. It may be caused by slightly different methods used for reporting, e.g. facts that numbers of prosecuted persons and persons brought to charges are projected in the statistics of the Ministry of Justice with a considerable delay (always when a relevant case is factually closed and the so-called complete record has been elaborated).
Representatives of all EU countries and representatives from Norway, Poland and the Czech Republic attended the seminar.
Suggestions concerning the abuse of the Internet for committing crimes were stimulating. They are as follows:
1. To ensure adoption of a legal regulation enabling the capture of data available on web sites for a minimal period for the purpose of facilitating investigations of the crimes in question. 2. The idea of implementing relevant restrictions relating to the right of remaining anonymous on the Internet. 3. To support ISP - Internet Service Providers by developing a relevant Code of Conduct and by preparing self-regulation measures (e.g. filtration of blocking of racial news spread via Internet.