Million Moments Protest to Start Today at 4pm

The organization Million Moments will hold a protest in defense of democratic institutions on Sunday, March 1st, in Prague.

The event starts today at 4 p.m. with a march from Hradčanska to the Old Town Square, which will be followed by a demonstration.

The demonstration is in response to the election of Stanislav Krecek to the Public Defender of Rights.

Křeček defeated the Senate’s candidate, Vít Alexander Schorm, who serves as the Czech Government’s representative before the European Court of Human Rights. Attorney Jan Matys was also proposed by the Senate and lost during the first round.

“The Prague event will not be primarily a protest against Stanislav Krecek. The election of S. Krecek by the is ‘just’ blatant example of how government and major institutions are systematically and intentionally torn down and politically privatized step by step. KSČM and the Castle, with the assistance of a part of the CSSD, are gradually and systematically tearing down prestigious democratic institutions that are supposed to control the rules and serve all citizens, not just select politicians,” said Million Moments.

The movement is concerned that the Czech Republic is headed in the same direction as Poland and Hungary, where the consolidation of media under politicians who then control the justice, state administration, public tenders, and elections.

In the past, Million Moments has called for 19 demonstrations. Two of them were at Letná last year, both of which gathered over 200,000 people. Two hundred eighty thousand people met in June and 250,000 in November.