Prague Court Convicts Czech Teacher for Denying Russian War Crimes in Ukraine
A court in Prague has handed down a suspended sentence to a former schoolteacher for spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation and denying Russian war crimes in Ukraine during a classroom lesson. The Gaze reports on this with reference to ČTK.
Martina Bednarzova, who taught at a primary school in the Prague 6 district, was found guilty of breaching Czech education law, internal school regulations, and the labour code. The court sentenced her to seven months of conditional imprisonment with a 20-month probation period, and imposed a three-year ban on teaching. She was also ordered to complete a certified course on media literacy.
The case stems from an incident in April 2022, when Bednarzova told her eighth-grade students that Russia’s actions in Ukraine were a “legitimate way to resolve the situation,” and that “nothing is really happening in Kyiv.” When confronted by pupils referencing televised footage of missile strikes, she reportedly dismissed Czech public television as biased and repeated false claims about so-called “Nazi groups” in Ukraine “systematically exterminating Russians” since 2014.
In court, Bednarzova’s legal team defended her remarks as protected speech under the right to freedom of expression, arguing that even controversial opinions should be tolerated in a democratic society. Following the verdict, Bednarzova, now a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies running under the Communist-aligned “Stačilo!” movement, denounced the case as politically driven. She reiterated debunked claims about Ukrainian “atrocities” and questioned the legitimacy of investigations into the Bucha massacre, while accusing the media of distorting the truth about the war.
Although the sentence is not yet final and may be appealed, legal analysts have described the ruling as a milestone in efforts to safeguard factual integrity within the Czech educational system at a time of heightened disinformation threats linked to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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