Czech Republic To Try Woman for Inciting Hatred Against Ukrainians and Ukraine
A pro-Russia supporter and former head of the "representation" of the temporarily occupied territories in the Donetsk region, Nela Liskova, will face charges for using hate speech against Ukrainians and Ukraine.
As Prazsky Denik reported, this legal action follows a tweet by Liskova in June of this year, in which she accompanied a photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with accusations of Nazism against the president and his supporters. In the tweet, she also declared that her "task will be the de-Ukrainization and de-Nazification of the Czech Republic."
The next day, former Czech Minister of Culture, Daniel Herman, promised to report the tweet to the police, which led to the law enforcement authorities taking action against Liskova under the charge of "public incitement to hatred against a group of people, restricting their rights and freedoms."
On October 25th, Czech police announced that the pre-trial investigation had concluded, and the findings were submitted to the district prosecutor of Prague 4. Subsequently, the chief prosecutor referred Liskova's case to court. If convicted, she could face up to three years of imprisonment.
Notably, Nela Liskova was a member of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) in the past and ran for municipal elections in Ostrava in 2014 on behalf of the LEV 21 party. However, she didn't hide her pro-Kremlin views after the annexation of Crimea, and in 2016-2017, she led a puppet "representation" in the Czech Republic for the territories temporarily occupied by Russia in the Donetsk region.
Russian propaganda portrayed this event as the establishment of relations with a "new state," even conferring the title of "honorary consul" on Liskova. However, the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs succeeded in shutting down the "representation" led by Liskova through the courts within half a year.
In 2019, Liskova was fined 50,000 Czech crowns following a lawsuit by Olga Richterova, the Vice-Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. Liskova attributed words to Richterova, falsely claiming her desire to host tens of thousands of migrants in the Czech Republic, which triggered a storm of criticism on social media, including death threats.
As previously reported by The Gaze, the Czech Security Information Service (BIS) identified an individual as one of the Russian agents who had lived in the Czech Republic for years and organized campaigns to spread Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.