… Ing. Jiří Fiala, a political prisoner in the Czech Republic, won his case at the European court for human rights. Instead of the Czech Republic fulfilling its international obligation accepting the European court´s decision, the Czech Republic decided to persecute him. He has been detained illegally three times in the past for several months without any proper trial. Every time he was set free by the Court of Appeal. Once, even president Václav Klaus had to intervene. At the moment he is in detention again and on May 6th, 2011 he started a hunger strike to protest his treatment. Because of this, citizens have asked Amnesty International for help. To their surprised, however, they were told that Amnesty International has a limited mandate in the Czech Republic which doesn´t allow them to work on cases concerning Czech political prisoners. We think that this might be a case of Amnesty International´s unjust and unbalanced position towards Czech prisoners. …
Citizens for their Rights in Prague
Civic Association, Rooseveltova 5, 160 00 Praha 6
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Your Excellence
Mr. Norman L. Eisen
USA Ambassador for Czech Republic
Ambassadory USA in Prague
Tržiště 15
118 01 Praha 1 – Malá strana
Prague, 16th May 2011
Your Excellence,
Our civic association highly values the contributions which the United States has made to the area of human rights. We believe that human rights cannot be divided. Of course it is not possible to fight against basic human rights violations in all countries, however, in countries such as the Czech Republic, a democratic state, we cannot overlook such matters.
Allow me to draw your attention to two areas where there have been clear violations of Czech constitutional law.
1A/ On March 29th, 2011, the constitutional court decided (PL. ÚS 11/11) that the regional mandate can be obtained upon being voted into the municipality. This decision completely violates article 101 of the constitution, which states that those who are voted into the municipality only receive the mandate for the municipality and not for the region. Article 6 states that political decisions in the Czech Republic must be based on the outcome of free elections. There cannot be free elections in the Czech Republic when the constitution is violated.
1B/ Out of all 31 European states, the Czech Republic is the only state where elections take place over the course of two days; on Friday from 14.00 to 22.00 and the following day from 8.00 to 14.00. The basic problem is that the ballot boxes are unattended by the voting commission for ten hours during the night and it is possible to manipulate and falsify the votes. One example of this happening is the municipality of Tatrovice, where 60% of the citizens signed a petition entitled ´honest proclamation´ saying that they did not vote for the winning party, and where the police found that the elections where manipulated in the interest of the winning party. In spite of this, the constitutional court proclaimed the falsified results to be valid. With this unconstitutional act by the constitutional court, the very principals on which our democracy stands have been trampled upon.
2/ Ing. Jiří Fiala, a political prisoner in the Czech Republic, won his case at the European court for human rights. Instead of the Czech Republic fulfilling its international obligation accepting the European court´s decision, the Czech Republic decided to persecute him. He has been detained illegally three times in the past for several months without any proper trial. Every time he was set free by the Court of Appeal. Once, even president Václav Klaus had to intervene. At the moment he is in detention again and on May 6th, 2011 he started a hunger strike to protest his treatment. Because of this, citizens have asked Amnesty International for help. To their surprised, however, they were told that Amnesty International has a limited mandate in the Czech Republic which doesn´t allow them to work on cases concerning Czech political prisoners. We think that this might be a case of Amnesty International´s unjust and unbalanced position towards Czech prisoners.
Your Excellency, we highly appreciate your stance on the problematic area of human rights. We would be very grateful, if you could devote your personal attention to the two above mentioned cases. Your answer would be very much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Ing. Karel Berka
chairman
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