|
Protests grow against authoritarian slide in Czech Republic
[Al Jazeera] Fifty-thousands people filled Wenceslas Square on Tuesday to protest what they say is an attack on judicial independence that threatens to send the country down a similar route with its internationally pilloried neighbours.The event marked a fourth week of growing demonstrations since the sudden appointment of Marie Benesova as justice minister in April. Her nomination came one day after Sherlocks recommended Prime Minister Andrej Babis should face criminal charges for European Union  ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...subsidies fraud. "I think they've crossed the line," Mikulas Minar, one of the student founders of the Million Moments for Democracy (Milion Chvilek), the NGO organising the protests, told Al Jazeera when asked why the demonstrations have picked up such momentum so quickly. "Complaints about Babis have been common, but now people are afraid it's no longer a game but a serious assault on democracy," added fellow activist Benjamin Roll. On the square that hosted the Velvet Revolution, the 1989 demonstrations that brought down the communist regime, the crowd waved Czech and EU flags and sent up deafening whistles every time Babis' sins were mentioned in speeches. Posted by: Fred 2019-05-22 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=541532 |