A Czech state attorney has charged four election leaders of the far-right Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS), including Tomas Vandas, for their public statements made at a May Day rally in Brno in 2009, the DSSS told CTK Monday. Vandas was the chairman of the Workers' Party (DS) that was dissolved by a court verdict in February. The court concluded that the party spreads fears of foreigners and creates feelings of danger and its programme contains xenophobia, chauvinism and homophobia and has a racist subtext. When the DS lost the court dispute it announced that it will run in the May elections under the name Workers' Party of Social Justice, an allied and previously dormant entity. "It is sad and tragic that representatives of an opposition political party must be tried in court for their public addresses," Vandas said in reaction. Apart from Vandas, DS deputy chairmen Jiri Stepanek and Petr Kotab, and Martin Zbela, the editor-in-chief of a paper issued by the party, were convicted. The far-right leaders were charged with instigation to hatred towards a group of persons, limiting their rights and freedoms and promotion of neo-Nazism. They face up to five years in prison, if found guilty. On May Day 2009, Vandas allegedly warned against immigrants, Stepanek and Kotab criticised drug crimes of the Vietnamese community and the work of then human rights and minorities minister Michael Kocab, and Zbela condemned alleged political trials in the country, the DSSS said in a written statement.
Prague Monitor
