Constitutional Court rejects complaint from alleged neo-Nazi now in custody

The Constitutional Court has rejected a complaint filed by one of the 10 alleged neo-Nazis currently in custody who were arrested during a large police raid on the extremist scene in June. The imprisoned man claimed there were no grounds for his ongoing detention. Judges did not review the complaint in detail but rejected it as evidently unfounded. ČTK reported on the case yesterday after the decision was published in the court’s database.

The court did not publish the full name of the plaintiff, just the initials M. F. He was sent into custody in June by the District Court for Brno-venkov, and the decision was upheld in July by the Regional Court in Brno. His complaint to the Constitutional Court claimed the reasoning of both court decisions was insufficient.

The alleged right-wing extremist requested preferential handling of his complaint, which the judges granted. They did not accept his arguments and did not find that his fundamental rights had been violated. “In this particular case it is relevant, from a constitutional law point of view, that courts at both levels have already addressed the legality of this criminal prosecution, and not only in the formal sense,” the court ruling reads.

In June, police arrested 10 people during a raid on those connected to extremist groups and charged them with promoting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms. The raid was the result of several months of work by the Organized Crime Detection Unit (Útvar pro odhalování organizovaného zločinu – ÚOOZ) on the extremist scene. The investigation is said to have concerned musical performances organized since April 2008.

The defendants, representatives of the National Resistance (Národní odpor) organization, face up to eight years in prison for planning 11 concerts at which Nazism was allegedly promoted. Each one is said to have contributed to organizing the events in some way. The defendants say they have committed no crimes.

In response to the arrest of the 10 right-wing extremists, protests were held by other extremists in Brno, Chomutov, Karlovy Vary, Olomouc and Ostrava in the days following the raid. Another protest has been called by the neo-Nazis for this Saturday in front of the Brno prison where the defendants are being held.