EU state sentences teacher for ‘pro-Russian' views
A Czech court has handed a former teacher a seven-month suspended sentence for expressing pro-Russian views during a school lesson, local media reported on Thursday.
Martina Bednarova was also banned from teaching for three years and ordered to complete a media literacy course, according to the Ceska Justice news portal. The court reportedly said Bednarova misused her role by presenting 'misleading information' to students.
The incident occurred in April 2022, shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict, during a Czech language lesson at an elementary school in Prague. According to media reports, Bednarova described Russia's military action of Ukraine as a 'justified way of resolving the situation' and cast doubt on Czech television's coverage.
She also said 'Nazi Ukrainian groups' had been killing Russians since 2014, seemingly referring to Ukrainian nationalist battalions, such as Azov, which Moscow has accused of committing atrocities against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine – a narrative disputed by Kiev and Western governments. Students recorded the class and alerted school officials, leading to Bednarova's dismissal.
Judge Eliska Matyasova claimed Bednarova was not simply voicing personal views but delivering false information in a classroom where students could not question it. Bednarova said her remarks were part of a media literacy lesson and called the case politically driven. The verdict is not final, as she has the right to appeal.
The District Court initially acquitted Bednarova twice, with an appeals chamber backing the second ruling on free speech grounds. In January, however, the Supreme Court overturned the decisions and ordered a new review to assess whether her actions met the criteria for a criminal offense.
Prague has taken a strongly anti-Russian stance in recent years, especially in response to the Ukraine conflict, becoming one of Kiev's staunchest supporters.
In its 2023 human rights report, the Russian Foreign Ministry labeled the Czech government's actions as 'Russophobic' and expressed concern over freedom of speech in the country.
It also raised concerns over the functioning of media in the Czech Republic and noted what it called a steady drift toward anti-Russian sentiment.
Russian will also be phased out as a second language by 2034 under new Czech education reforms, with students limited to German, French or Spanish. As of late 2023, over 40,000 Russian nationals lived in the country, making them the fourth-largest foreign community.
The Czech Republic, once part of communist Czechoslovakia and a Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc member, became independent in 1993 after the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the Soviet Union's collapse. Since then, the country has removed or altered hundreds of Soviet-era monuments, with another wave of removals following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev and the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.
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