Czech President Petr Pavel on Thursday signed an amendment to the country’s criminal code that criminalises the promotion of communist ideology, placing it on the same footing as Nazi propaganda.
The revised legislation introduces prison sentences of up to five years for anyone who “establishes, supports or promotes Nazi, communist, or other movements which demonstrably aim to suppress human rights and freedoms or incite racial, ethnic, national, religious or class-based hatred.”
The change follows calls from Czech historical institutions, including the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, to correct what they viewed as a legal imbalance.
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It’s fascinating that in a world where to far right is surging everywhere, having captured the only superpower, with the richest man in the world throwing sieg heils on live primetime television, where we are entering an era of new concentration camps, these kinds of liberals find it useful to do stupid shit like this. Do they not see that if/when the fascists capture their presidency they will use exactly these laws to turn the screws on everyone to the left of the far right?
Honest question: how did you deduce that “kinds of liberals” did this? What sort of party does the Czech president belong to?
He was widely lauded as a pro-western anti-populist liberal when he was elected. His political positions as re generally aligned with liberal parties across Europe.
As an European - which liberal parties? Did you mean libertarian?
I mean liberal. Pavel was supported by parties like ODS, TOP09, KDU, which are economically liberal parties. More generally, European liberalism is represented by groupings such as ALDE, or Renew. But European technocratic liberalism is strong in both the centre left and centre right parties all over Europe.
Thanks for clarifying, have a pointless internet point.
He was elected by a coalition of center-right classical liberal parties.
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You can fight any authoritarian ideology at any time. There is no fighting only fascism/nazism or Leninism/Maoism/Stalinism/Juche. The law signed targets specifically Soviet era propaganda and it’s sympathizers and puts it on a level with Nazi propaganda, which is banned in Czechia to the extent it is banned in Germany.
Sure, like right wingers fight pedophilia when they target LGBT people.
But ok, let’s take it at face value. There is no threat of a Soviet style takeover in Europe. They’re beating a dead horse. So as far as dead horses go, why stop at Soviet oppression, start passing law legislating I don’t know, glorifying Roman imperialism and Ottoman expansionism. Ban glorification of hussites and violent Anabaptists. Take your revenge on history. I hope the orgasm is worth it.
But then remember that there is however a rabid far right that calls European institutions “Soviet” and that has no interest in any checks and balances. They love calling social democrats “communists” and they love to talk about the threat of antifa and they love giving police more power to crack protestor skulls. If you can’t see how these laws today are going to be used tomorrow by the fascists, even after what Trump is doing at the US, I don’t know what else to tell you.
Vladimir Putin’s attempts of rebuilding ‘Soviet’ Russia has been widely reported at least since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine when it started in 2014, and Putin won’t stop there if successful. Russia’s threat to Europe goes beyond the battlefields of Ukraine comprising arson attacks, cyber warfare, election meddling, … The number of Russian attacks in Europe nearly tripled between 2023 and 2024, after quadrupling between 2022 and 2023.
Putin hates Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Yes, he lionizes Stalin, but only to the extent that he can cast it as Russian imperialism. The beef is with Russian nationalism, there is zero need to drive a wedge with European left parties eg in the South, there is no reason to distract from the actual danger which is Russian imperialism and authoritarianism and it is in fact extremely dangerous to be building the legal infrastructure that fascists can and will use to crush the left.
What makes you believe this?
He blames Lenin and the Bolsheviks for Ukraine having its own identity. This is indicative of his attitude: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/vladmir-putin-accuses-lenin-of-placing-a-time-bomb-under-russia
See also: https://jacobin.com/2022/02/putin-anti-bolshevik-tsarist-mythic-history-ukraine
Meanwhile China wringing it’s hands: “Yes, distract the Europeans away from our ambitions and tell them that multitasking is impossible.”
Plus Putin not only glorifies Tsar Nicholas II but also Stalin and is outraged when monuments of Russian and Soviet imperialism are taken down in eastern European countries.
Hello? China? China calls itself “communist”. Like all authcoms, it isn’t actually socialism, but usually capitalism with “communist” aesthetics. A state creating an economic monopoly while not allowing workplace democracy is not socialism. Socialism is when the workers control the MOP, not the state. The state just creates unnecessary hierarchies in modes of economy.
Also I am for banning all parties seeking to impose authoritarian anti-democratic rule.
Is China threatening European democratic institutions in any way shape or form?
Yes through hybrid warfare and illegal police. Also our extreme right is oddly pro-China.
I don’t know what Chinese hybrid warfare you are talking about. Any articles I’ve found with these keywords always seem to lump China with Russia, which I find just sensationalist. China is one of our biggest trading partners and I don’t see any reason why Europe cannot find a live and let live modus vivendi with them. I mean if we can stomach the Palestinian genocide at our doorstep without a fucking peep, the Uighurs are far enough…
The illegal police issue is nowhere near an existentially serious problem that affects the viability of European democratic institutions.
And the danger of the far right has nothing to do with China.
China is an authoritarian state, yes, but it’s one that for 3 decades at least has played nice with us. They are far less disruptive and threatening than the Trumpist Americans are. If Europe can find a way to work with Trumpist USA, why not with China too?
I friggin linked you articles. Also are you for real? You are just going to downplay serious stuff as basically “it’s not as bad as what others are doing”? Also just because the US and Russia are problems, doesn’t mean China isn’t. Most of your counterarguments are whataboutisms and deflections so far.
Now that I took a peek at the articles you posted, here is my sense (and it’s just a sense): none of these things are existential. They are all problems, but they do are not at the level of needing to start clamping down freedom of extreme speech in Europe, the way the Czech law does. The same cannot be said for the very real and existential threat to democracy that the resurgence and mainstream-ization of far right extremism is a threat. Meloni, Orban, Lepen, Wiilders, these kind of fascist assholes are much more of a threat to European democracy than Xi is at the moment.
China is friends with Russia. Yes, so are the rest of BRICS: India, Brazil, South Africa. How high do you want to build the wall?
This is not “whataboutism” by the way. It is looking for the balance. Liberal democracy is striking a balance and that means managing the “about these” and “about those”. In this balancing act, the kind of no holds barred demonizing of China that I think you’re pushing for is NOT where European democracy needs to be.
You edited your article afterwards, I responded to your post when it was just the first line.
“And the danger of the far right has nothing to do with China.”
Oh really?
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/afd-spionageaffaere-russland-und-china-im-fokus-neue-enthuellungen-belasten-die-partei-1714480876-a-a1c05e64-b6bc-4c6b-844e-a78a32ec4f91