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Czech Republic

Hate Crimes (in progress)

The following overview of hate crimes legislation is based on information submitted directly to the ODIHR by Czech Republic during the course of 2004-2005. While, in some instances, the wording of the legislation may appear unclear, it has not been changed from its original form.

On the basis of this structure, ODIHR enourages pS to submit relevant information to fill in any gaps.

Legislation is constantly updated, and therefore the provisions cited are subject to change. The term racist is illustrative and does not exclude other bias types. The use of "Article", "Section", or § refers to parts of the respective Criminal Code.

International crimes [1]	Section 259 Genocide (1) Whoever, with intent to annihilate, fully or partially, a national, racial or religious group, (a) causes the members of such group to live in conditions which will lead to their complete or partial physical extinction; (b) carries out measures designed to prevent the birth of children in such group; (c) forcibly transfers children from one such group to another; (d) causes severe injury to health, or death, to a member of such group, shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of from twelve to fifteen years or an exceptional term of imprisonment. (2) The same punishment shall be imposed on any person participating in an act under subsection (1).
Incitement to hatred / Dissemination of racist ideas [2]	Sections 198 (“defamation of a race, nation or belief”), 198a (“incitement to national and racial hatred”), 260 (“sponsoring and promotion of movements which aim to suppress the rights and freedoms of citizens”) and 261 (“public expression of sympathy for fascism or similar movement”).
Holocaust denial [3]
Personal violence	Section 196: “violence against a group of inhabitants and against individuals on the basis of race, nationality, political conviction or religion”.
Destruction of property
Civil rights violations
Racist organizations [4]
Racist cyber-crime
Aggravating circumstances	The Czech Criminal Code includes racist motivation as a specific aggravating circumstance. An amendment to the Code in 1995 increased all sentences for crimes with racial motives and extended the range of evidence for such crimes as murder, battery, intimidation, and damage to property where there is a racial motivation.
Bias types [5]	National origin, ethnicity, race.

[1] Relevant international crimes include genocide, apartheid, slavery and persecution.

[2] Includes (public) incitement to racial discrimination, violence or hatred; (public) dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred; (public) insults and threats.

[3] Includes public denial or gross trivialization of international crimes, especially genocide/the Holocaust.

[4] Includes creation, support, participation.

[5] Includes bias types referred to in definitions of crimes and as aggravating factors, but excludes crimes based on denying equality of citizens, which tend to encompass broader grounds for discrimination.

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