Last update - 00:00 17/01/2008
City in Czech Republic bans neo-Nazi march slated for weekend
By DPA
The western Bohemian city of Pilsen decided to ban a neo-Nazi march scheduled to pass through the city over the weekend, Mayor Pavel Roedl told reporters Thursday.
"I don't want to be the mayor of a city in which radicals have a free
possibility to give the Nazi salute," the Pravo daily cited the mayor as
saying on its news web site.
The mayor also said that he banned the march, planned for Saturday, for security reasons as the authorities believe that much more than the announced 150 radicals would arrive in Pilsen, a city of around 164,000 some 95 kilometres west of Prague.
The city worries that potential clashes between the marching neo- Nazis and militant anti-fascists could put residents and their property in danger, the ordinance banning the march said.
"The security of the Pilsen residents and the protection of their property is my priority. Therefore I decided to ban (the march) after an evaluation of the latest information from the police and public sources," the mayor said in a statement.
Pilsen thus became the second Czech city after the capital Prague which decided to ban such a march.
Banning neo-Nazi marches in advance has proved tricky as their conveners have learnt to circumvent the Czech legislation that safeguards freedom of assembly.
"Because of repression they want to prove that they know how to legally outsmart the state," political scientist Miroslav Mares said.
He added that the Czech neo-Nazis, who have recently professionalized their actions, "are copying the strategies of the German NPD," Germany's far-right National Democratic Party.
In Pilsen the march was registered to reach a synagogue on Saturday - a day after the 66th anniversary of the first Jewish transportation from Pilsen to a concentration camp.
But its convener - who is, according to the police, a right-wing radical - told authorities that the participants plan to protest restrictions to freedom of speech and assembly, which is not illegal.
In Prague, right-wing extremists registered to pass through the city's
historical Jewish quarter on November 10, the anniversary of the so-called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) pogrom.
But they officially claimed they wished to protest the Czech participation in the Iraq war.
Czech legislation makes banning protests, whose registered purpose does not openly incite hatred, very difficult.
"The Czech assembly law is written in favour of those who organize
gatherings," Mares said.
Despite the ban, some 400 Czech and foreign right-wing radicals descended on Prague on November 10, but the police barred them from marching through the Jewish district.
The Pilsen police force is also gearing up. "I suppose that my ban will not discourage some of the people interested in this protest from travelling to Pilsen," the mayor said.