Czech Neo-Nazis emerge from the shadows
“They are trying to present themselves as the force of law and order,” says Miroslav Mares, Czech neo-Nazi expert and political science professor at Masaryk University. “They hope to address the broader political spectrum in the next elections.”
At their marches, they claim to be nothing more than nationalists, the only ones who will fight to uphold the identity and integrity of the Czech nation. “Our only duty is to continue in our fight by defeating this rotten liberal regime with its own weapons-in the elections,” said Tomas Vandas, head of the Workers Party, at a neo-Nazi march in Plzen on March 1, 2008.
Propagating outright Nazi ideology would be breaking Czech law, so they skirt around it. Prague, for example, struck down their request to march through the Jewish quarter on November 10, 2007, the 69-year-anniversary of Kristallnacht, yet they tried to gather there anyway, claiming to be protesting the Czech Republic’s involvement in the Iraq War.
The Czech police managed to keep hundreds of skinheads from coming into the city, a move praised by anti-racism groups.
A few hundred neo-Nazis were able to gather in Plzen on January 19, 2008, the anniversary of the first transports of local Jews to Nazi concentration camps. The Plzen mayor banned the march, but they appealed to the courts and succeeded in demonstrating on March 1, protesting the infringement of their freedom of speech rights.