Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Something's Happening Here, What It Is Ain't Exaclty Clear

On Monday, several thousand music fans gathered in the Czech capital to protest a brutal police action which took place at the annual gathering known as Czechtek over the weekend. The protesters waved placards which read "Techno isn't terrorism," "Techno isn't crime," beat drums and chanted “police state” during the rally held outside the Interior Ministry building in Prague.

The police action at Czechtak was ordered by the local police chief and backed by Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan and Social Democrat Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek, who both said police acted to uphold the law. The demonstrators called on both men to step down.

Bublan told Czech Radio police had no choice but to act and uphold the law. "The fact that we've so far been benevolent has caused problems, because in countries such as Germany, France or Britain, this just isn't possible. Either they have special laws on such gatherings or the local authorities don't allow them in the first place. If we allow such events to take place here, everyone would get used to the fact and I don't think that would send a positive signal. Because the law is being broken, private property is being destroyed, and the state can't just sit back and watch."

On Monday, however, right wing Czech President Vaclav Klaus said the police assault which left dozens injured was a grave mistake. He said those who ordered the attack overstepped the constitution. Klaus, who was on holiday in the Alps at the time, released this statement via his spokesman Petr Hajek. "The action of the police is hard to excuse. Especially in our country, where the sight of riot police moving in on young people automatically brings back unpleasant memories from the past. This event was very bad indeed, and bears witness to the fact that something is not right in this country."

The annual CzechTek festival, this year was held near the village of Mlynec, in West Bohemia. The authorities have let previous festivals pass mostly undisturbed, but this year, says the Prague Daily, riot police used water cannon and fired tear gas grenades to disperse the estimated 5,000 partygoers.

Eyewitnesses say Friday morning the police blocked the exits from the higway D5, causing an 8 kilometres long traffic jam. According to these eyewitnesses, the police officers were trying to stop people from exiting the highway based on their looks. At one point, around 150 people sat on the highway requesting that they be allowed to continue to the festival. Eventually, the Czech police used water-guns and heavy force to clean the blocked highway. Abandoned cars were pulled away. The police continued to block the highway exits, but thousands eluded them and made their way to the festival anyway.

On Sunday, At at about 4:30 PM the police requested that the thousands of participants leave the gathering or face the consequences. The police assault started two hours later supported by around thousand riot cops using tear gas and trying to force festival goers to leave the area. The assault was answered by throwing of various object at the police cordon and people shouting "gestapo" at the cops. The police assault ended a little after 7 PM resulting in 50 injured people both on the sides of police and the participants.

A second wave of police assault started about two hours later with the goal of pushing out the remaining people.

Tomas Lebeda, of the Prague Global Policy Institute - Glopolis said that the police took strong action against CzechTek, but when skinheads hold events, the police are not hard enough. "The social danger the skinheads and neo-Nazis represent is substantially bigger," he said.

Czech political analyst Rudolf Kucera agreed and said that the police think too long during skinhead concerts about whether the law was breached, but they acted very quickly against CzechTek.

Organizers of Monday's protest said that the police were looking for an excuse to stand against techno fans in Mlynec at any cost. They accused Bublan and police of having expediently released untrue and misleading information to damage the technoparty organizers in the eye of the public.

The protest organizers demand that the police action against CzechTek be investigated, as it violated the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms as well as the Czech Constitution. They are also asking how much of the taxpayers' money the police intervention cost.

"We have nothing to do with CzechTek's organizers. We are connected by access to the internet, tolerance of various cultural expressions and disagreement with the police operation against this event, which seemed to us absolutely inadequate," the protest organizers said in a statement released Monday.

Another protest is planned for Wednesday. Sources: Prague Daily Monitor, Prague Daily, AlertNet, ETIB24, IMC/Slovensko

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