First Lady of Ukraine sends message to "Czech Republic against Fear" demonstration in Prague

Tens of thousands of people assembled on Prague’s Wenceslas Square to protest against fear and hate. According to the correspondent for the Czech News Agency (ČTK) , the entire square was full, although the crowd was sparse in some places.

The organizers wanted to express their solidarity with Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia in February, and to draw attention to the need to protect democratic values. The event was expected to last roughly an hour and a half.

Police estimated participation in the lower tens of thousands. They used the same wording to describe Friday’s anti-Government demonstration, even though the ČTK correspondent reported that today the attendance was higher.

People in the crowd held the flags of the Czech Republic, the European Union and Ukraine. Car traffic on the square was stopped, with corridors on the sidewalks facilitating pedestrian traffic.

Oversized flags of the Czech Republic and Ukraine, roughly 10 meters long, were extended over the upper part of the square. The podium featured signs reading “Czech Republic against Fear” and “We Can Do It.”

The President of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil (Civic Democratic Party – ODS), was also among the demonstrators. The first video message sent to the demonstration was from the actor, musician and writer Jiří Suchý, who said that while people in the Czech Republic may be cold and poor, people in Ukraine are dying and, unlike the Czechs, they have no chance to get rich or warm up in the future.

“Let’s try to be brave,” Suchý said. He was followed by the founders of Million Moments for Democracy, Mikuláš Minář and Benjamin Roll.

The organizers called on people not to be afraid, not to allow themselves to be manipulated, and not to succumb to those they called the traffickers in fear who organized the anti-Government demonstration on Friday, 28 October. Later on in the program the video message from the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenská was played, and another long-distance video message was sent by the director of the People in Need nonprofit organization, Šimon Pánek.

The founder of the Czechs are Helping civic initiative, Jaroslav Miko, addressed the demonstrators in person and drew attention to the discrimination against Romani refugees from Ukraine he has witnessed. “I had no doubt, when the war began, that Czechs would manage to open their arms to the refugees, but at the same time I was concerned that the aid would not be fair,” Miko said.

“Unfortunately, that is what happened – we gave a ride to many Romani refugees from Ukraine, to Romani children who ended up at the train stations or in the woods. The approach taken toward them involved a double standard,” Miko said, adding that refugees from Syria are being treated similarly now; his remarks were received with enthusiastic applause.

The program also included the directors Václav Marhoul and Helena Třeštíková, the economist Tomáš Sedláček, and many actors. The event closed with the Czech national anthem, performed by Adam Mišík, as well as the national anthems of Slovakia and Ukraine.

The Czech Police tweeted that more than 100 officers were supervising the course of the assembly. “As always, uniformed police officers are on the scene, as are detectives and our colleagues from the anti-conflict team.” they tweeted.

“We estimate the numbers of those in attendance in the low tens of thousands,” wrote the Czech Police. The Million Moments group convened several events in support of Ukraine shortly after Russia invaded that country in February.

Thousands of people have attended their events on Wenceslas Square. The association was created after the elections to the lower house in 2017, which were won by the ANO movement.

Million Moments for Democracy organized demonstrations during which they criticized then-PM Andrej Babiš (ANO) for his conflicts of interest and his failure to keep his election promises. In June 2019, the biggest such demonstration on the Letná Plain in Prague was attended by as many as 250,000 people.

On Friday, 28 October, an anti-Government demonstration was held on Wenceslas Square that lasted roughly three hours. The upper half of the square was full, but thinned out toward the tram tracks that bisect the square.