Extremism

Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic
Security Policy Section

Report on the Issue of Extremism in the Czech Republic in 1999

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Report on extremism in the Czech Republic in 1999

Reports on extremism in the Czech Republic are regularly presented to the Cabinet and later to the Parliament in line with the Cabinet's Resolution No. 192 of the 19th March 1998.

The report on extremism in the Czech Republic in 1999 (further referred to as “report”) mainly draws on information gathered by the intelligence service, the Police of the Czech Republic, the Investigation Office of the Czech Republic, the state prosecutor's offices and courts and also reflects the information gathered by other ministries, thus representing a consensual view of the state bodies on this issue. The report was approved by the Cabinet's Resolution No.684 of the 12th July 2000 and discussed in the Lower House of the Czech Republic.

The report, divided into preface, six chapters and a conclusion, represents a summarized information on the situation in extremism in the Czech Republic depicting this issue from various points of view including measures adopted on the level of the Cabinet and each ministry to eliminate the criminal activities bearing features of extremism. It includes a description of the Czech extremist environment, enumerates activities of extremist groups operating in the Czech Republic and deals with the criminal activities motivated by racial, national and other kind of intolerance or activities committed by the extremist groups supporters. It perceives the issue of extremism in a greater, all-European context and for that reason it also pays attention to basic trends in extremist activities abroad with emphasis on central European geopolitical range. The international assessment of the quality of extremism, racism and anti-semitism suppression in the Czech Republic is an integral part of the report.

This time the emphasis is in particular placed on greater forthrightness of the report and on the range of this issue, which is reflected both in a comprehensive and balanced approach to the rightist and leftist spectrum of the extremist environment and in a more detailed view on the extremism-motivated crime and measures adopted by the state bodies including individual steps undertaken by each ministry and the ministry-regulated state bodies.

For the first time the report names some of the civil associations or political parties registered with the Interior Ministry which were previously treated only generally as registered anti-system organizations. It concerns the organizations about which the state bodies have justified reasons to assume that some of their activities can be related to extremism as is defined and used in the report. It is a preventive step. Regarding the repeated ocurrence of the observed type of crime the report for the first time puts a question of assessing the amount of risk in all the regions, also mentioning some of the factors which can be, although indirectly, reflected in the increased rate of xenophobia. Further, the report newly includes cases when police officers committed extremism-motivated crime.

Greater attention is paid to the most significant activities that the corresponding ministries and ministry-regulated state bodies carried out regarding the prevention and sanctions for the extremism-motivated criminal activities.

As far as the next-term tasks are concerned, still valid are the measures resulting from the appendix to the Cabinet's Resolution No. 720/1999.

To be concrete, these measures concentrated on:

It is the forthrightness that remains the imperative in the Interior Ministry policy at the beginning of the 21st century, in relation to extremism. First successful steps towards this policy were taken in 1999 taking into account that “European solutions” must be sought after in order that they comply with the European size and character of extremism.

Besides bold law enforcement, one of the main prerequisites for the successful elimination of extremism in the future is, as the report conclusions imply, all-round prevention with participation of all the ministries and ministry-regulated state bodies as well as with participation of non-governmental institutions. The aim must be to change the overall climate in the Czech Republic which both reduces and contributes to opportunities for the extremists and to space within which the extremists manoeuvre.

The report is complemented with maps, charts, graphs, and an appendix containing the “Summary of 1999 cases where suspicion that an extremism-motivated crime or offence was committed existed including the cases motivated by racial and national intolerance and the cases committed by extremist groups supporters regardless of their final legal qualification”. The summary represents an Interior Ministry database annually prepared in cooperation with police extremism specialists, the Investigation Office of the Czech Republic, the Supreme Prosecutor's Office and the Justice Ministry. The appendix takes into account the specific character of extremist crime and pictures it on the basis of assessing each case. The appendix further informs about the state of solution of the extremism-motivated crimes committed in 1999 according to the kind of their termination as per the 31st May 2000.

More information can be obtained at the Security Policy Department (e-mail: mmazel@mvcr.cz)