Czech lower court rules that Interior Ministry should not have included "Freedom and Direct Democracy" (SPD) party in extremism report, ministry may appeal

The court did not award the apology sought by the SPD. The movement’s legal representative would not comment on the verdict and referred reporters to the press department.

A ministerial representative said the ministry is considering filing an appeal with the Municipal Court in Prague. The movement sought an apology for the fact that the ministry labeled it a populist, xenophobic group and attributed to it a dominant role in expressing prejudiced hatred.

According to Judge Iva Kaňáková, the ministry’s own criterion that such displays be the dominant element in a movement’s activity for it to be included in the report was not met. However, the judge said that the interference with the movement’s rights had not been so significant as to require an apology to the SPD.

“The court finds that in this case it is enough to establish that rights were violated,” the judge said. She pointed out that during the subsequent elections to the Chamber of Deputies in the fall of 2021, the SPD movement succeeded, and that therefore the publication of the report had no influence on the results.

In his closing arguments, the legal representative of the SPD said that during the second half of 2020, the dominant rhetoric of the movement was not what the report said it was. On the contrary, in his view, the movement paid attention to many other subjects at that time.

The SPD’s lawyer also rejected the allegation that the movement’s speeches were xenophobic. However, according to the Interior Ministry representative, Lubomír Janků, the SPD movement’s representatives use rhetoric that far exceeds the boundaries of acceptable freedom of speech.

In his closing remarks, Janků said the movement’s aim, in his view, is to invoke fear and hatred. According to him, the movement does not differentiate between Islam and Islamism, and he compared the SPD’s rhetoric to that of the Nazi (NSDAP) party during the 1930s.

“I believe the reasons as we summarized them today in closing arguments still apply. The dominance of hateful prejudice in the SPD’s statements is unequivocal, in our opinion,” Janků told journalists after the judgment was read.

Last spring the Prague 7 court originally ordered the ministry to apologize. However, the Municipal Court in Prague overturned that judgment and returned the case to the first-instance court to be reviewed.

The courts are currently dealing with several lawsuits from the movement against the Interior Ministry over its extremism reports. In one such case, according to the daily newspaper Hospodářské noviny, the lawsuit was rejected in October 2024.

“The Freedom and Direct Democracy Movement of Tomio Okamura (SPD) can be designated an extremist association that intentionally invokes hatred toward some groups. The District Court for Prague 7 made that ruling in October, which has yet to take effect,” Hospodářské noviny reported in December 2024.

There is one more case of this kind on which the court has yet to rule.