The Czech Chamber of Deputies yesterday granted a police request to lift the immunity from prosecution of Tomio Okamura, leader of the far-right party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD). Okamura is being charged with incitement to racial hatred over two inflammatory posters from his party’s election campaign last year.
The lower house approved the police request after more than four hours of deliberations, during which SPD MPs delivered speeches opposing the motion, citing freedom of speech and expression.
Police are investigating Okamura for incitement of hatred against a group of people and restricting their rights and freedoms, in connection with SPD’s billboard campaign ahead of the regional and Senate elections last autumn. Police say the posters, which criticised the EU migration pact, had racist or xenophobic overtones.
Of the 143 MPs present, 81 voted in favour of lifting the SPD leader’s immunity, and 62 voted against. The motion was supported by MPs from the ruling Civic Democrats (ODS), Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), Mayors and Independents (STAN) and TOP 09, as well as the opposition Pirates and independent MP Ivo Vondrak (formerly ANO). MPs from SPD and ANO voted against. Okamura’s brother Hayato Okamura (KDU-CSL) left the Chamber before the vote, as he had previously announced.
“We are entering a new era of political criminalisation, and you are at the birth of it,” SPD parliamentary leader Radim Fiala told the MPs who had voted to lift the immunity. He described it as the end of democracy.
The plenary session approved the motion without the opinion of the parliament’s mandate and immunity committee, as recommendations to approve or deny the police request both failed to win a majority of votes in the committee.
Okamura sent a written opinion to the committee, defending the motives for the posters. Committee deputy chair Pavel Stanek (ODS) read it out in the Chamber along with the police request.
SPD MPs placed a banner with the words “I will not take it back” in front of the rostrum in the Chamber of Deputies.
Okamura said before the vote that the debate was not about him, but “what can be said and shown and what and how can be pointed out.”
Stanek said he would expect Okamura to request that his immunity be lifted in order to defend his position in court.
The SPD poster at the heart of the discussion featured a dark-skinned man with a bloody knife and a blood-stained shirt, along with the text “The shortcomings in the healthcare system will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons’.” Critics called the advert racist and criminal complaints were filed.
Okamura has repeatedly rejected the characterisation of SPD as racist or xenophobic, describing the campaign as “an allegory”.
Another SPD election poster with two Roma boys smoking a cigarette triggered further criminal complaints. The image was created by artificial intelligence. The text read: “They tell us to go to school, but my parents do not care…” and “Support only for the families where children are in school!”.
The SPD election posters have also been dealt with in court. Lawyer Pavla Krejci and others she represented demanded that courts in various regions ban the posters to protect the integrity of the election campaign, but these requests were not approved. The Constitutional Court declined to intervene, finding no procedural basis to do so.
