Czech lower house passes amendment explicitly criminalizing promotion of communism as well as Nazism and protecting victims targeted for bias crime because of disability, gender, or sexual orientation
The Czech Chamber of Deputies has approved an amendment to the Criminal Code that explicitly names the communist and Nazi movements among the ideologies which it will be a crime to promote because their aim is to suppress human rights and freedoms. The amendment was adopted on 30 May as part of wider reforms to criminal law.
The amendment expressly includes communism in paragraph 403 and was supported by 86 of the 160 lawmakers present for the vote. Nobody voted against it.
The amendment is now heading to the Senate. “Whosoever establishes, supports, or promotes Nazi, communist, and/or other movements which demonstrably aim to suppress human rights and freedoms, or espouses racial, ethnic, national, religious, or class grudges or ill-feeling toward another group of persons will be punished through deprivation of liberty for a period of one to five years,” the approved amendment reads.
According to a co-author of the bill, Michael Rataj, elected for the Mayors and Independents (STAN) movement, this is a symbolic settling of accounts with the injustices of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. “In addition to the Nazi movement, it also explicitly includes the communist movement,” he said during debate in the lower house, adding: “Both those totalitarian ideologies were foreign to the free spirit of this country, and both were equally monstrous.”
Rataj stressed that the legal system must be consistent and that differentiating between communism and Nazism is “illogical and unfair”. He also warned that communism is still being frequent glorified due to people’s family ties to the pre-1989 era, among other things: “Part of Czech society still perceives Nazism as the crime of the foreign, German nation, while communism is frequently excused as ‘our own’ ideology just because it took root in this country.”
Lawmaker Martin Exner (STAN) also spoke in favor of the bill, saying: “Executions of their opponents were perpetrated by both [communists and Nazis], concentration camps and gulags were run by both those regimes, antisemitism was part of both those regimes, a monopoly on power enforced through violence was part of both those regimes, occupation of neighboring states was done both by communism and Nazism, plans for violent world domination, again, were held by both the Nazis and the communists, the ideology of fear and hatred was part of both those regimes, and here they differed only in the fact that the hatred in Nazism was racial and national, while the hatred in communism was based on class, but the means were always the same: camps, murders, totalitarianism.”
The change was also supported by lawmaker Michal Zuna (TOP 09), according to whom the position of communism as equal to Nazism is justified and represents a symbolic gesture of justice toward those who were victimized by the crimes of the communist regime. On the other hand, lawmaker Helena Válková (Association of Dissatisfied Citizens – ANO) and lawmaker Patrik Nacher (ANO) warned that the practical impact of the change will apparently be minimal.
Válková reminded the lower house that the current wording of paragraph 403 already facilitates prosecution of all movements which “demonstrably aim to suppress human rights and freedoms,” irrespective of ideology. According to her, the explicit naming of communism and Nazism is of no material consequence, but is rather symbolic: “Nothing, absolutely nothing, will be improved or transformed here from the standpoint of criminal law by adopting this.”
A similar opinion was expressed by the former president of the Chamber of Deputies, Radek Vondráček (ANO). He said: “I see the strength of this bill on a symbolic level and have nothing against it.”
At the same time, however, Vondráček warned that in practice the new wording of the law might be interpreted excessively. In his view, there is the risk that somebody might interpret the amendment too literally and seek to prosecute even speech that actually is neither dangerous nor harmful to society.
New legal protections for victims of bias crime motivated by disability, sex, or sexual orientation
If it passes the Senate, the amendment will introduce many other changes. For instance, it will introduce the so-called child certificate, a new type of criminal registry record that is meant to permanently verify the lack of a criminal record for persons working with children.
The amendment will also legalize possession of a smaller amount of cannabis for personal use and expand the opportunity for persons possessing too much cannabis to be fined. Expanding protection from bias crime will also make important progress, as persons targeted because of their actual or perceived disability, gender, or sexual orientation will be newly protected should the bill become law.
Following the newly-approved change, people who are targeted for attacks because of their disability, gender, or sexual orientation will have the same level of legal protection as those who face violence because of their nationality, political beliefs, or religion. According to the In IUSTITIA organization, which has long dedicated itself to victims of bias crime, legislators have corrected an inequality in the protection of vulnerable groups by adopting the amendment.
“We have corrected an error in the law,” the organization said, calling the result of the vote important progress toward legislation that will be more fair and more just. If the Senate approves the amendment and the President signs it, the law should take effect in January 2026.
