Czech citizens took to the streets again on Sunday to support their president, Peter Pavle. The demonstrations followed the gathering from the beginning of February, when tens of thousands of people gathered at the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square in Prague. TASR writes about it according to the website Novinky.cz and the portal iDnes.cz.
- Czechs once again demonstrated in support of President Petr Pavel.
- The demonstrations were held in response to the case of Minister Macinka.
The mentioned gathering took place on February 1 in response to the case concerning the Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs and the chairman of the Motoristi sebe party, Petr Macinka. According to Pavle, Macinka tried to blackmail him in an attempt to get their deputy Filip Turk to head the Ministry of the Environment.
“This is no longer just about the president. It’s about all of us. It’s time to be proactive. It’s time to make it clear that we are not Hungary or Slovakia – and that we will not allow a group of oligarchs, extremists and jerks to steal the future of our country from us,” Mikuláš Minář, chairman of the association Million Moments for Democracy, who organized the event, wrote on the X platform.
More than 400 cities and municipalities signed up for demonstrations, including Pilsen, Liberec, Brno and Olomouc. Only in the Liberec region itself, about 16 municipalities joined the assemblies. According to Minář, there have never been demonstrations in so many places at once since the Gentle Revolution. This time, based on the association’s decision, there was no demonstration in Prague.
Even before the demonstrations, Macinka stated that he perceives the action as a protest of the opposition. According to him, however, the pressure will not change the direction of the current government. At the same time, during the demonstrations, the association collected signatures for the appeal entitled “We stand behind the president”. According to the CNN Prima News portal, which quoted the association’s statement, there are already more than 800,000 of them, which is why Minář announced that the next demonstration on Letenská plana in Prague will take place on March 21. However, he initially claimed that he would announce the demonstration only after collecting one million signatures.
The last time the Czech Republic managed to fulfill the flight plan was in 2019, when people protested against Andrej Babiš, who was also the prime minister at the time. At that time, the association estimated the participation of 300,000 people.
