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FM AMEMBASSY PRAGUE
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INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRAGUE 000092 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/18/2020 
TAGS: PGOV GM EZ
SUBJECT: CZECH COURT BANS EXTREME-RIGHT WORKERS PARTY 
 
REF: A. 09 PRAGUE 310 
     ¶B. 09 PRAGUE 386 
     ¶C. 09 PRAGUE 454 
     ¶D. 09 PRAGUE 727 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Mary Thompson-Jones for reasons 1.4 (b 
) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: On February 17, the Czech Supreme 
Administrative Court banned the extreme-right Workers Party 
(DS), saying that the party represents a threat to democracy. 
 This is the first time the court has banned a political 
party for its political activities since the fall of 
communism in 1989.  The party has the right to appeal to the 
Constitutional Court within 30 days, and DS Leader Tomas 
Vandas said the party would do so.  There have been numerous 
clashes between the Workers Party and the police in recent 
years.  The effect of the ban is likely to be little more 
than symbolic.  Party members will still find a way to run in 
May parliamentary elections, although they will not garner 
enough votes to enter Parliament.  Nonetheless, the push for 
the ban by the Fischer government shows its commitment to 
fighting extremism, and may serve as a warning to 
extreme-right groups that they cannot act without limits. 
End Summary. 
 
------------------ 
Quashing the Party 
------------------ 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Czech law bans parties that aim to eliminate the 
democratic principles of the state, or to suppress the 
equality of citizens, or whose programs threaten citizens' 
rights and liberties.  The government has twice pursued 
efforts to ban the DS.  In March 2009, the Supreme 
Administrative Court dismissed an attempt to ban the party by 
the former coalition government led by PM Mirek Topolanek, 
ruling the evidence was insufficient to prove the party was a 
true threat to democracy.  Political leaders, analysts, and 
NGOs criticized this first attempt for its lack of detail. 
In response, Interior Minister Martin Pecina of PM Jan 
Fischer's interim government introduced a new, more 
comprehensive proposal to ban the DS in September 2009. 
 
------------------------ 
The Trial and the Ruling 
------------------------ 
 
¶3. (SBU) The hearing before the Supreme Administrative Court 
began on January 11 and lasted four days.  The government 
called the party "racist, violent, and xenophobic" and spent 
much of its time describing the DS's views and connections to 
other right-wing organizations.  Police experts on extremism 
also testified for the government.  The government argued 
that the DS was linked to the unregistered Czech neo-Nazi 
organization National Resistance through joint participation 
in public events and from references to the DS on the website 
odpor.org, which endorses National Resistance.  The 
government attempted to tie DS members to neo-Nazi events, 
showing pictures of alleged members wearing Nazi symbols and 
giving the Hitler salute.  Some DS members have been 
prosecuted in the past for supporting and promoting a 
movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms, the 
government testified.  The Qntroversial battle between the 
DS, Roma, and the police in November 2008 in a majority-Roma 
neighborhood in Litvinov also formed part of the testimony. 
Finally, the government's attorney, Tomas Sokol, focused on 
the party's youth organization, the Workers' Youth, noting 
its program includes the statement "our country belongs to us 
alone, not to immigrants and people of different 
nationalities." 
 
¶4. (SBU) DS leader Tomas Vandas represented the 950-member 
party in court.  He said there was no reason the party should 
not cooperate with Germany's right-wing National Democratic 
Party (NPD), noting that the NPD was legally registered in 
Germany.  He did not distance the party from a claim by a 
speaker at a DS event that the current system is "full of 
Zionists" but did say that nowhere in the DS program is the 
word "Zionism" mentioned.  Vandas submitted clean criminal 
records for some members but said he does not screen 
potential members. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The court ruled that the party's program contains 
xenophobia, chauvinism, homophobia and a racist subtext, 
spreads fears of foreigners, and creates feelings of danger. 
Supreme Administrative Court Presiding Judge Vojtech Simicek 
said the DS uses ideas and symbols from Hitler's National 
Socialism.  He said the party's program is extremist and 
represents a threat to democracy. 
 
-------------------- 
A Range of Responses 
 
PRAGUE 00000092  002 OF 002 
 
 
-------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Leading politicians, including ODS Chair Mirek 
Topolanek and CSSD Chair Jiri Paroubek, lined up to support 
the court's decision.  Interior Minister Pecina said that the 
ruling confirmed that the judiciary will not tolerate 
movements, groups, or parties that jeopardize the country's 
democratic system.  Vandas, for his part, said that the ban 
was without merit and simply an attempt to eliminate 
political competition.  (Note: The Workers Party is more 
organized than it once was, winning one percent of the vote 
in the June 2009 European Parliament elections, which 
qualified the party for state funding for the first time.  No 
analysts, however, expected the DS to cross the five percent 
threshold necessary to enter Parliament.  End Note.) 
 
¶7.  (C) Analysts had a more restrained reaction.  Miroslav 
Mares of Masaryk University in Brno, an extremism expert, 
dismissed the ban as symbolic, telling poloffs that a ban 
does not address the greater problem of a "general level of 
extremist violence" in the country.  Mares said there are two 
strains in the DS.  The first strain consists of members in 
their 40s and 50s who formerly belonged to the 1990s-era 
extreme-right Republican Party led by Miroslav Sladek.  The 
second strain includes younger, more militant members.  It is 
this latter group that Mares worries about, saying that they, 
and other members of the right-wing movement, may become more 
militant as a result of the ban.  Nonetheless, Mares told the 
press that the state has now defined the boundaries within 
which the extreme-right movement can act.  Analyst Zdenek 
Zboril of Charles University told journalists that the 
verdict served as a warning for the extreme right regarding 
its aggressive public behavior. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The press criticized the ban attempt during the 
trial.  Daniel Kaiser of Lidove Noviny said that although the 
DS should be condemned for its activities, he opposed the ban 
on the party, saying that just because a party supports 
capital punishment and opposes immigration does not mean it 
should be banned.  Jiri Leschtina of Hospodarske Noviny 
criticized Vandas for denying ties between the DS and the 
National Resistance, but said that the party does not 
represent a threat to democracy since it has almost no chance 
to enter Parliament.  A state should tolerate parties that 
advocate undesirable views if they do not threaten democracy, 
said Leschtina.  Following the trial, Leschtina wrote that 
current political parties in parliament are the main threat 
to democracy, not extremists.  Martin Komarek of Mlada Fronta 
Dnes called the decision a blow to the rights of freedom of 
expression and assembly.  In contrast, Peter Uhl of Pravo 
considered the decision a legal victory. 
 
---------- 
Next Steps 
---------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The party has the right to file an appeal to the 
Constitutional Court within 30 days.  If it does so, said 
Presiding Judge Simicek, the DS ban would be temporarily 
suspended.  Vandas told the press that the party would 
certainly appeal.  Depending upon how quickly the 
Constitutional Court acts, DS members may still be able to 
run in the May parliamentary elections under the DS banner. 
If the Constitutional Court upholds the ban before the 
elections, the DS members could establish a new party or run 
as members of another party.  Meanwhile, the court has 
appointed attorney Radslav Janecek to liquidate the party's 
assets.  This process is expected to take several months. 
 
¶10. (C) Comment: The impact of the DS ban is limited.  If the 
DS loses its Constitutional Court appeal, party members will 
likely find a way to run for Parliament and local offices. 
Moreover, the decision does nothing to address the general 
level of extremist violence in the country that extremism 
expert Mares worries about.  The ban does demonstrate the 
Fischer government's commitment to fighting extremism, 
however, and may serve as a warning to the country's numerous 
extreme-right groups.  End Comment. 
Thompson-Jones