IslamOnline.net & NewspapersCAIRO – The Czech Republic has banned a far-right party for fueling hatred against minorities, the first such a move since the independence of the central European country.
“This ruling needs to be understood as a preventive one, to maintain the constitutional and democratic order in the future,” Judge Vojtech Simicek said in a 120-page ruling cited by The New York Times Friday, February 19.
Describing it as xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic, the court said the far-right Workers’ Party posed a threat to the Czech democracy.
The ruling, adopted Wednesday, said the party follows the example of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi policies and had links to white supremacist and racist groups.
“Society must realize that the causes for the Workers’ Party lie deeply within itself,” judge Simicek said.
Established in 2003, the far-right party is not represented in the Czech parliament.
In 2009, it won a surprising 1.07 percent of votes in the European parliament election.
The far-right party openly calls for the overthrow of the Czech political system and an abolition of all Czech parliamentary parties.
Some of its top officials have been associated with neo-Nazi groups such as Narodni odpor, Czech subsidiary of international militant neo-Nazi group.
The ban follows attacks by party supporters against minorities last year, which saw the killing of young child in a gas bomb attack, prompting the government to seek its outlaw.
The Czech Republic is home to around 50,000 Muslims.
In 2004, Prague acknowledged Islam as an official religion, giving Muslims rights on an equal footing to Christians and Jews.
Fight Rightists
The ruling was widely welcomed by different political parties in the Czech Republic.
“In a democratic society, the battle against extremism never ends,” Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina, who filed the ban petition, told a news conference cited by the BBC News Online.
“Either we act immediately and stamp out extremism as soon as it appears, or we can wait for police cars to be set on fire and petrol bombs to be thrown.
“Each step - like the one taken today - significantly weakens the neo-Nazi movement.”
Czechs said that the ban would help put an end to violence against minorities.
“I think it's vital to show the whole of society that extremist groups like the Workers' Party advocate the suppression of the rights of ethnic and other minorities,” said Gabriela Hrabanova, head of the government's Council for Roma Community Affairs.
While immigrants make up less than 1 percent of the country’s 10.2 million population, ethnic minorities account for nearly 4 percent.
“All of us - including Romanies - have a place in this society,” Hrabanova said.
“I call on the whole of Czech society to reject these racist and extremist views.”
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