Request for solidarity
We are writing to inform you of the latest attack of state power � the Home Office of the Czech Republic � against the Communist Union of Youth (Komunisticky svaz mladeze, KSM) – a member organization of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) – and against the communist movement in general in the Czech Republic.
The Ministry of Interior has sent a warning and precept, in which it:
1. impugns the status of the KSM as a civic association under pretext that the goals of KSM�s activity interfere with an area restricted to activities of political parties that is, according to the interpretation of the Home Office of the Czech Republic, excluded from the intervention of civic associations. Nevertheless the KSM does not differ in this area from the field of action of other youth political organizations in the Czech Republic like Young Conservatives, Young Social Democrats, Young Christian Democrats, etc. Thus it is obvious that this attack against the KSM is politically motivated. It is an obvious attempt to restrain our freedom of association.
2. tries to coerce the KSM into renouncing its political program, communist identity, goals, and theoretical basis in Marx, Engels and Lenin, that is Marxism as a whole.
On this ground the Home Office of the Czech Republic threatens to make the KSM illegal by December 31, 2005. If that happened it would without any doubt set a precedent whereby the same argument could be used against other civic associations. But the Home Office of the Czech Republic also aims to attack the parliamentary Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM).
This attack against the KSM is just the climax of a long-run anticommunist campaign that has increased in intensity this year. Among its manifestations was for example a petition titled �Let�s abolish the communists,� an endeavour of senators Mejstrik and Stetina to pass a law that would criminalize communist ideas, movement and the word �communist� as such. This bill simultaneously put communism and its ideas on one level with fascism and its crimes. (This text has been already passed in the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and now it shall be discussed in the House of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic.) Also a so-called humanitarian organization People in Need � Czech Republic has been involved in this anticommunist campaign. This organization has begun to organize a strongly anticommunist campaign within the public education system in elementary schools and secondary schools. In recent days the House of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic has also passed a new Penal Code according which it is a criminal act to approve of and/or deny Nazi and so-called communist crimes.
It is necessary to emphasize that the attack against the KSM is an attack against the whole communist movement in the Czech Republic, and therefore also against the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which the state power has not so far dared to attack directly; it does so indirectly by attacking the Communist Union of Youth. The closeness between the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which is today one of the strongest parliamentary political parties in the Czech Republic and one of the strongest communist parties in Europe, and the Communist Union of Youth has been shown also with the attendance of the president of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia Vojtech Filip at the recent Seventh Congress of the KSM, when he expressed his wish that the ideas of the KSM find a rousing response throughout the young people and that �people who have passed through the ranks of the KSM provide new blood for the KSCM.�
Dear comrades, friends,
We believe that it is necessary to stand up internationally against this attempt to criminalize the communist movement in the Czech Republic. We ask you therefore to express your solidarity with the KSM and to send protests against this unprecedented move of the Home Office of the Czech Republic to the following address:
Ministerstvo vnitra (Ministry of Interior)
oddeleni volebni a sdruzovani,
namesti Hrdinu 3,
140 21 Praha 4
Czech Republic
Fax: ++420 974 816 872
e-mail: stiznosti@mvcr.cz
benesova@mvcr.cz
krivova@mvcr.cz
You may also send your protest to the missions of the Czech Republic abroad. Their addresses
We ask you simultaneously to send copies of your protests on our e-mail: international@ksm.cz or on fax: ++420 222 897 426.
Thank you for your solidarity.
Milan KrajÄ?a, Chairman of the KSM
