The Czech Constitutional Court has rejected the first of a series of complaints against alleged racist imagery in the campaign by the far-right electoral alliance of Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), Tricolour and PRO ahead of the regional elections.
As the complaint was dismissed for procedural reasons, the court did not deal with the substance of the case.
The complaint was filed by lawyer Pavla Krejci from the Central Bohemia Region. Krejci announced the court’s decision on social media. The decision is not yet available in the court’s database.
Krejci demanded that the court ban the campaign’s poster showing a dark-skinned man with a bloody knife, wearing a blood-stained shirt, with the text: “Shortages in the healthcare sector will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons’.”
Krejci also criticised another poster, created using AI, of two Roma boys with cigarettes saying: “They tell us to go to school, but my parents don’t give a damn…”
A regional court rejected the complaint. Krejci then addressed the Constitutional Court, which has now also rejected it, arguing that she should have instead filed a cassation complaint with the Supreme Administrative Court.
The Constitutional Court also received a series of complaints from other regions, who are also being represented by Krejci. Krejci said they were told that for a complaint concerning the election to the South Bohemian regional assembly, a cassation complaint was not admissible, and so the court could not use this argument.
In August, the Romea organisation, the Central Bohemian Regional Coordinator for Minorities Cyril Koky and others sued the SPD, leader Tomio Okamura, Tricolora and PRO over the election poster depicting Roma boys, arguing that it is racist, defamatory, and promotes hatred against the Roma minority.
The police have been dealing with the case of the SPD poster depicting a dark-skinned man.
