illustration photo, courtroom, justice—courtroom, court, trial, judge, justice. (CTK Photo/Martin Sterba)
Prague – The public prosecutor indicted a primary school teacher from Prague 6, according to him, she committed a crime when she defended Russia's war aggression in Ukraine in front of her pupils during class. Aleš Cimbala, the spokesman for the Municipal Public Prosecutor's Office in Prague, answered the question of ČTK. According to the criminal code, the crime of denying, questioning, approving and justifying genocide is punishable by half a year to three years in prison.
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“During the Czech language class, she communicated her interpretation of the current situation in Ukraine to the eighth-grade students, or rather, within the framework of her interpretation intended for the students, she questioned and denied or tried to justify the war crimes against peace committed by the Russian Federation until April 5, 2022 in connection with by provoking a war conflict by attacking another sovereign state,” Cimbala described.
“On the basis of the evidence provided, in the subject matter it was necessary to accept the conclusion that the defendant did not commit only general expressions of support, but proactively presented such claims that she justified war aggression in the sense that it was a justifiable tool or an excusable method of solution prevailing at the time situation,” the spokesperson added.
According to earlier media reports, a teacher from the Na Dlouhé lán Elementary School claimed during a style class that nothing was happening in Kyiv. When the eighth-graders objected that they had seen the burning city on the Czech TV news, she told them that public television was biased. She then explained in the media that during the discussion with the children, she realized that they only had piecemeal information, and she wanted them to learn more. The students made a recording of the lesson, for which the teacher demanded that the author be punished. The school dismissed the Czech student after the incident.
The District Attorney for Prague 6 filed the indictment on Wednesday. The case will be decided by the District Court for Prague 6.
“For the sake of prevention, I would like to repeat that even though freedom of expression is one of the basic human freedoms, this right also has its legal barriers, the violation of which can be brought on the basis of the provisions of the Criminal Code and the criminal responsibility of specific persons,” concluded Cimbala.
