Chairman of the Law and Respect for Expertise (PRO) party, Jindřich Rajchl, spoke at a press conference on the course of the Czech Republic Against Poverty demonstration and on the statement of Interior Minister Vít Rakušan (STAN), March 15, 2023, Prague.
Prague – Representatives of the Právo Respekt Odbornost (PRO) party, which called Saturday's anti-government demonstration on Wenceslas Square, demand that the police's internal control department investigate the actions of the police in front of the National Museum. They announced it today at a press conference. After the demonstration ended, some people tried to remove the Ukrainian flag from the museum building. The police officers have previously stated that they started using coercive measures only when some participants escalated their aggressiveness and did not respond to repeated calls.
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The party called the Czech anti-poverty anti-government demonstration on Saturday. After the official end of the event at approximately 17:00, some of the participants tried to remove the Ukrainian flag from the facade of the National Museum. Police said in a statement on Monday that a man with a megaphone was urging participants leaving Wenceslas Square to go and take down the flag. The instigators were arrested by the police, and criminal investigators are dealing with his actions. ČTK is investigating the current police statement.
According to the vice-chairman of the party Ondřej Svoboda, for example, the police did not sufficiently explain why they secured people from the crowd who, according to him, did not attack anyone. He also denied that aggression was escalating in the crowd. He emphasized that, according to him, no violent incident happened at the demonstration itself. According to him, the police should inform the public about the results of the inspection. Svoboda criticized the statement of Interior Minister Víto Rakušan (STAN), who said on Sunday that the police intervention was professional.
PRO Chairman Jindřich Rajchl pointed out that the incident in front of the National Museum only happened after the demonstration ended. He emphasized that the demonstration was not pro-Russian, he called people who, according to the published photos, had, for example, a patch with the letter Z or the symbol of the Russian private Wagner group, as provocateurs. Vice-chairman Petr Vacek said that the party filed a criminal complaint against them.
Police at the museum detained 20 people for disobeying the summons. In addition to the man who, according to the police, incited people to violence, the police also detained a man suspected of denying, questioning, approving and justifying genocide. According to the police, another man damaged a passing vehicle with a Ukrainian license plate. Three police officers were injured during the intervention at the National Museum.
