Some Romani social media users are falling for Czech YouTuber's manipulative video alleging a "mobilization" is being prepared

This latest instance of disinformation about an alleged mobilization is because of Jana Bobošíková‘s manipulative video. It was exactly this politician who harshly attacked Romani people several years ago during her election campaign, labeling them “inadaptables”.

Speaking on her YouTube program “Just To Be Clear” („Aby bylo jasno“), Bobošíková, who has failed in her recent bids to play various roles both in and out of politics, alleges that the Government is supposedly “quietly, very rapidly” arranging for a mobilization. The video scares people by naming the kinds of people who would supposedly be affected by mobilization and punishments people would supposedly risk for failing to join the Army.

Her message is a gross manipulation of the facts. What is actually going on?

No mobilization, no coverup – the Government makes its work available online

Bobošíková’s very first allegation that the Government is making plans “quietly” is untrue. She is discussing a cabinet session from the beginning of this year, specifically, the 4 January session.

She alleges that at that meeting, a law and “mobilization” were “quietly” approved. However, the Government issued several press releases about that cabinet session and did not attempt any “coverup”.

“Making it possible for the Czech state to effectively prepare to defend itself in a timely manner, even outside of a declaration of a state of threat or state of war, is the point of the amendment law through which the Government of Petr Fiala wants to adjust the legislation on the Czech Republic’s defense. The cabinet has approved his bill during the 4 January 2023 session, the first of the new year,” says the press release on the Government’s server, which also links to a separate press release published on the website of the Defense Ministry, which enumerates all of the prepared changes in detail: “The Government, at its Wednesday cabinet session, approved a package of changes to legislation in the area of defense that will facilitate the more effective preparation of the citizenry for involvement in the defense of the state, make service in the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic more attractive, increase the flexibility of preparations to defend the state, and clarify and supplement the existing legislation overall.”

Not “mobilization”, just another opportunity to voluntarily join the Army

The Government actually has proposed some changes to the Act on Defense, but this is decidedly not an announcement of “mobilization”, as some Romani social media users are telling each other – the changes are, for example, about the voluntary recruitment of new people and the creation of a new institution called “voluntary predetermination”, which will introduce another opportunity for citizens to voluntarily become involved in defending the state. “Currently, citizens have the opportunity to become professional soldiers, to join the active reserves, or to attend voluntary military exercises. Voluntary predetermination will be a fourth option for citizens being able to join,” Defense Minister Jana Černochová explained at the beginning of January.

If a citizen decides to join the voluntary predetermination program, then all that immediately means is undergoing a medical examination; the citizen also pledges to do her/his duty of participating in exercises and to acquire basic military skills if the security situation deteriorates in an essential way. The holding of any military exercises would be decided by the Government with the consent of the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house).

“Of the four opportunities that are available for engaging in the defense of the state, voluntary predetermination will be the least burdensome. We want to accommodate people who want to do something for their country but who, for personal or professional reasons, cannot join the active reserves or attend voluntary military exercises,” the Defense Minister said.

Other changes involve, for example, remunerating active reserve soldiers or the opportunity for the Defense Ministry to use the data and information stored in public administration systems for defense planning and the preparation for crisis situations even outside of a declaration of a state of threat or a state of war. “Today, the situation is such that the data which could be used to prepare for a crisis state could only be accumulated after the declaration of a state of threat or a state of war, which is too late,” the Defense Ministry explained in its press release at the beginning of January.

“The Defense Ministry needs this data for planning and preparatory work long before something happens,” the press release explains. The entire law, where the planned changes and the explanatory memorandum can be seen, has been published on the “Laws for People” server (Zákony pro lidi).

This is not the first disinformation about “mobilization”

Disinformation about “mobilization” was spread among some Romani social media users in the runup to the presidential election. According to those deceptive posts, candidate Petr Pavel was predicted to want to announce “mobilization” immediately after winning.

“If Pavel wins, there will be war. I don’t want my children and grandchildren to go to war,” one such Facebook post reads.

“That Pavel will win and there will be a mobilization. We don’t want to go to war,” one Romani Facebook user said to his followers in a live broadcast.

News server Romea.cz refuted that disinformation at the time. It is only possible to announce a mobilization in the case of a state of war.

Such a state is not announced by the President, but by the Parliament of the Czech Republic, just like a state of threat or a state of emergency. To announce a state of war, more than half of all the members of both the lower and the upper house would have to vote to do so.

Who is Jana Bobošíková?

Bobošíková is a former MEP and journalist who worked for public broadcaster Czech Television as both a journalist and a moderator from 1989 to 1998. She became famous at the turn of the millenium for her heading of the news division during the crisis at Czech Television.

After that she went into politics, becoming an advisor to the President of the Chamber of Deputies in the year 2000, who was Václav Klaus at the time. In the year 2004, she and Vladimír Železný were elected to the European Parliament for the NEZÁVISLÍ (INDEPENDENTS) movement.

In June 2009, she failed in her bid for reelection, running as the lead candidate for the coalition of the Politics 21 (Politika 21) party and the Common Sense Party (Strana zdravého rozumu) under the name “Sovereignty” (Suverenita). In 2008, she was nominated as a candidate for President of the Czech Republic by the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) during the second round.

She ultimately withdrew from that race. She also ran a failed bid for the presidency in 2013.

She also ran for the Chamber of Deputies in 2010, 2013 and 2021; for the Senate in 2010; and for Mayor of Prague in 2010, unsuccessfully in all races. In 2012, her “Sovereignty” party ran in the elections to the Regional Assemblies.

The anti-Roma situation was quite exacerbated at the time (for example, by the demonstrations in the Šluknov area and the lie about an assault on a teenager in Břeclav), and Bobošíková, along with her fellow party members, attacked Romani people harshly. Her campaign in the Ústecký Region had the slogan: “The inadaptables will not dictate to us!”

Already in 2011 she had done her best to win the support of Jiří Čunek, then a senator, today the Mayor of Vsetín. Čunek became “famous” by forcibly evicting Romani residents of Vsetín and housing them in units built from repurposed shipping containers as well as in devastated houses located in an entirely different administrative region.

At the time, Bobošíková commented that “difficulties with inadaptables are a significant problem”. She accused the EU of being to blame for Romani people moving from Slovakia into the Czech Republic and fought against it.

“I consider positive discrimination to be one of the engines of this negative process, which recently has engulfed people in the Šluknov area. The state has also given up on enforcing obligations,” she was quoted as saying against Romani people at the time by the tabloid Parlamentní listy news server.

“If the state will not acknowledge that everybody has the same rights and the same obligations, if it will not enforce those obligations, then none of these Human Rights Councils will aid us, and neither will billions in investment into these areas,” the tabloid quoted her as saying. In 2015, she was elected the president of the Lidice branch of the Czech Freedom Fighters’ Union (Český svaz bojovníků za svobodu).

Her election to that post led to the resignation from the union of the last three women still living who had survived the Nazi destruction of Lidice. “As our lives come to a close, we do not want the legacy of Lidice to become a subject of her career in politics,” the survivors said at the time in their resignation letter, reminding the leadership of the union that Bobošíková had made many xenophobic remarks in the past.