olocaust supporter gets 15 months suspended sentence
Prague, 16. 1. 2006, 12:14 (CTK)

Antonin Cermak, 21, was given 15 months in prison with a probation of 3.5 years for support for Holocaust today. Cermak reacted "only, only" to a Nazism opponent shouting "You have killed 1.7 million Jewish children" during a neo-Nazi demonstration in Prague last year.

Cermak and the state attorney have both taken time to appeal. The demonstration of about 70 neo-Nazis took place outside the German embassy in Prague on October 28 in support of Ernst Zuendel, alleged German denier of the Holocaust.

Zuendel has been accused in Germany of spreading hatred of Jews via the Internet and claiming that the Holocaust had never occurred.

Cermak called at the court today that he was reacting to a remark that concerned the number of demonstrators. According to the verdict Cermak's behaviour was confirmed by three witnesses - policemen, who stood right behind him during the demonstration.

Judge Edita Beranova said that Cermak had already been prosecuted for an attack against a man and unauthorised use of a car, but on the other hand he is young and has not yet been in prison.

She said however that the offence he was sentenced for today is very dangerous to society. He will now be supervised by the probation and mediation service.

Ten Romany women claiming compensation over sterilisation
Usti nad Labem, 12. 1. 2006, 9:26 (CTK)

Ten, mostly Romany women from the Usti nad Labem region have lodged criminal complaints over their sterilisation, the daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes in its regional edition today.

They say that the sterilisation was not correct and demand compensation of millions of crowns, the daily writes. The North Bohemian police are dealing with five legal complaints saying that women in the Most hospital were sterilised without having been properly informed. Further complaints have been lodged in the affair by the women from the Teplice, Chomutov and Usti areas.

The cases occurred between 1979 and 2003. A detective told the paper that the sterilisation had been carried out because the women's health was bad. The police must investigate whether the sterilisation was appropriate and whether the women had been sufficiently informed.

Some police are of the view that the criminal complaints are motivated by the money the women can receive through the compensation, the daily writes.

A woman from Most said that the social affairs office had withheld child benefits for her seven children for two years and half. She said that it had promised that she would receive 2,000 crowns if she were sterilised. She said that she had received the money, but never signed her consent with the operation. The case occurred in the Most hospital under the Communist regime. Ombudsman Otakar Motejl said that the operation was illegal as the relevant document lacked the patient's signed consent and a detailed instruction in written about the consequences of the operation. The woman was only told in the hospital that she would not be able to have any more children, Mostejl said.

The woman herself asked for the sterilisation because she had seven children and she signed the request, but she said that she had problem with reading and writing, Motejl said.

In this case, one can doubt whether the woman's will was free and valid, Motejl said.

Motejl said that patients should have a seven-day deadline in order to consider whether they wanted the sterilisation proposed by the doctor.

At least 50 women were sterilised at variance with law in the country in the past, including recent years, Motejl told public Czech Television (CT) on December 29, referring to his check of the controversial cases.

Motejl checked complaints from the women concerned, mainly Romanies, in cooperation with the Health Ministry for more than a year.



NS says it has converted Lety stone into war victims memorial
Prague, 16. 1. 2006, 10:06 (CTK)

The extra-parliamentary nationalist National Party (NS) has announced on its internet page that the stone it earlier installed at the site of a former wartime internment camp for Romanies in Lety, south Bohemia, turned into a World War Two victims memorial on Sunday.

The party earlier heralded its plan to unveil a memorial in Lety on Saturday, January 21. Romany organisations, politicians and human rights activists condemned the project as a clear racist provocation.

The plan's opponents say that it disgraces the remembrance of the camp's Romany inmates and victims. Romany organisations have said they expect the government and the police not to allow the monument to be built. Several criminal complaints have been lodged in connection with the NS's plan.

The critics are mainly upset by the NS's assertion that the Lety camp was only a labour one, where Romanies died of common diseases and that the camp was German, not Czech.

"A group of NS members completed the arrangement of the Memorial and they wrote a single word on it. The word is fitting and all-embracing. The mayor of Lety, who attended [the procedure] and the police have been informed that the insignificant stone has turned into the World War Two Victims' Memorial today and that its defacing, damaging or stealing would be a crime...not only because the Memorial's declared value exceeds 5,000 crowns," NS wrote on Sunday.

It declared the memorial to be a legal entity's property and a site of commemoration with all proper attributes.

The camp in Lety was established by the government of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia in August 1942 upon the orders from Berlin. Czech personnel worked in the facility where Romanies were interned before their transport to extermination camps. The Lety camp existed for about a year. Over 300 inmates perished there mainly of infectious diseases.

At present a pig farm occupies part of the camp's area. Romany organisations strive for the pig farm's demolition. The National Party stands up against the demolition, arguing that the farm is not situated on the original plot of the Nazi camp. NS chairwoman Petra Edelmannova has told the press that Germans had also interned vagabonds and antisocial elements in the camp. "In our opinion, such people are not worth being built monuments. We build memorials to those who managed to achieve something," Edelmannova said.

The police in the Pisek district, where Lety is situated, have been investigating the case but have not uncovered any crime so far. The police coordinate their steps with the local self- rule bodies. Police Presidium spokesman David Kubalak said the police are monitoring the case mainly in order to prevent possible conflicts. However, it is rather up to the local self- rule to solve the problem, Kubalak said.

Sobotka to create budget reserve for Lety pig farm liquidation
Prague, 16. 1. 2006, 14:07 (CTK)

The Finance Ministry will create a financial reserve enabling to buy out the pig farm in Lety, south Bohemia, where an internment camp for Romanies used to stand in wartime, Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and PM Jiri Paroubek (both Social Democrats, CSSD) agreed today. Paroubek earlier said that the government wants to buy the plot from the pig farm owner. The pig farm should be removed from the significant historical site, many NGOs say.

The Finance Ministry would not disclose the sum that will be put together by saving in other budget chapters, the ministry spokeswoman Petra Krainova told CTK.

Paroubek said previously that the state need not spend hundreds of millions of crowns but rather tens of millions. When he criticised government human rights commissioner Svatopluk Karasek's (Freedom Union, US-DEU) activities on this point last November, Paroubek said the sensitive matter could be settled in mid-2006.

Karasek then estimated the costs of the pig farm's removal at 300 million at least.

"A new pig farm cannot be constructed for less than 300 million crowns. If the prime minister manages it [spending less], I'd be glad," Karasek said in November.

According to historical sources, 326 people died in Lety and some 600 of its inmates died in Auschwitz (Oswiecim). A memorial was built close to the pig farm in the mid-1990s. The European Parliament (EP) that discussed the issue last spring approved a resolution in which it called on the Czech government to remove the pig farm.

The debate on the memorial was also fomented by President Vaclav Klaus who said last year that the Lety camp for Romanies was not a concentration camp.

The nationalist National Party (NP), that claims that the camp was a labour one, put up in Lety at the weekend a stone with an inscription saying "To the Victims" as a memorial to the victims of World War Two.

According to an NP plan a stone memorial was to be put up at the site in Lety saying that there was only a labour camp, that Romanies were dying in it of common disease, and that it was a Geramn, not a Czech facility.

This met with criticism of both Romany organisations and some politicians and associations. Romany organisations announced that they expect the government and police not to allow the memorial to be built.

Several criminal complaints have already been lodged in this connection.