(Too bad the US gov is too stupid to do this)
Czech government moves
to ban ultraright group
BY CINDY JAQUITH
On February 17 the Czech Republic’s Supreme Administrative Court banned the Workers Party (DS), a small ultraright group. The presiding judge said the DS is “populist, homophobic, chauvinistic, and demonstrates racist tendencies.” The ban is “a preventive one, to maintain the constitutional and democratic order in the future.”
According to Radio Prague, many cops testified in court in favor of the ban, describing DS demonstrations against Roma, an oppressed nationality referred to disparagingly as “gypsies” who have been a target of rightist groups throughout Europe.
The DS holds no national seats in the Czech Republic and just three local ones. It is expected to get about 1.5 percent of the vote in the next election. DS leader Tomas Vandas said if the ban is not overturned on appeal, party members will simply regroup under a new name.
The move to ban the DS, whose racist, anti-working-class views make it widely detested, sets a precedent to go after workers organizations in the future. According to the Prague Daily Monitor, Czech interior minister Martin Pecina said that the courts “must have the courage to fight not only with rightist, but also leftist extremism that ‘promotes communism.’”
The government initiated the action leading to the DS’s dissolution, and all other Czech parties supported it, including the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM). Vojtech Filip, KSCM chairman, praised the ban on the DS and said he wasn’t worried about attempts to ban his own party. Several senators have called for outlawing the KSCM, which got 14 percent of the vote in European Parliament elections last June, coming in third.
More: http://www.themilitant.com/2010/7409/740958.html
