Czech Police have launched a criminal prosecution of Tomio Okamura, leader of the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), in relation to inflammatory posters from last year’s election campaign. SPD spokeswoman Lenka Cejkova told CTK that Okamura had received the confirmation of the charges in his data box today.
Jan Danek, a spokesman for the Prague police, confirmed the information to CTK.
According to earlier information, police suspect Okamura of inciting hatred against a group of people with the posters, which the police say had racist or xenophobic overtones.
According to SPD, Okamura faces up to three years in prison for his “political opinion”.
The party’s poster criticising the EU migration pact sparked particular controversy ahead of last year’s regional and Senate elections. It featured a dark-skinned man holding a bloody knife and wearing a blood-stained shirt, along with the text “Health shortages will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons'”.
Last week, the Chamber of Deputies lifted Okamura’s parliamentary immunity at the request of the police.
Okamura told journalists that he would continue to fight for “a safe Czech Republic” and for freedom of speech. “In our opinion, the aim of the ruling coalition is to criminalise opposition views and ultimately to try to prevent SPD from participating in this year’s elections to the Chamber of Deputies,” the party said in a statement today.
Critics said the SPD’s election poster featuring a dark-skinned man was racist, and designed to unnecessarily frighten the public. Criminal complaints have been filed.
Okamura has repeatedly denied accusations that SPD is racist or xenophobic, describing the campaign as an allegory.
Further complaints were triggered by an SPD poster showing two Roma boys smoking a cigarette. The AI-generated image was accompanied by text reading: “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 campaign was also taken up by the courts. Lawyer Pavla Krejci and other people she represented have been arguing in courts in various regions to ban the posters, to protect the integrity of the election. The regional courts did not approve the motions, and the Constitutional Court also declined to intervene, finding no procedural way to do so.
