SPD Secretary Headed Back To Court Over Hate Speech

Jaroslav Stanik SPD

Prague, Aug 9 (CTK) – The lawyer for Jaroslav Stanik, a former official of the Czech anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) sentenced over a hate speech about Jews, Roma and gays, has filed a recourse against the court decision, Czech Television (CT) said today.

 

On August 1, the Prague 1 district court imposed a one-year sentence suspended for two years and a fine of 70,000 crowns on Stanik.

 

According to eyewitnesses, Stanik said in the parliament pub last October that members of minorities should be sent to gas chambers and that the Roma, Jews and homosexuals should be shot dead at birth.

 

“The defendant was found guilty in the sense of the indictment, or for the crime of inciting hatred of a group of people and infringement on their rights and freedoms as well as the denial, approval and justification of a genocide,” Jan Lelek, head of the Prague 1 State Attorney’s Office, said when delivering the verdict.

 

Stanik, 54, was an SPD secretary and an assistant to SPD deputy Jaroslav Holik.

 

Anti-EU and anti-immigration SPD chairman Tomio Okamura said Stanik is no longer an SPD member, let alone the secretary.

 

By filing the recourse, the penal order for Stanik is cancelled. Now the district court must order a trial to deal again with the case.