Former Czech President Slams Pandemic Law as an ‘Attack on Freedom’

Former Czech President Václav Klaus has sharply criticized the planned amendment to the pandemic law which the government is trying to enforce in the Chamber of Deputies, it has emerged.

According to Klaus, the proposal is an “extraordinary attack by state power on freedom, democratic order, and constitutionally protected rights.”

“A draft bill is being discussed in a shortened process, meaning in a regime of emergency legislation, which circumvents a proper public social and legal debate. It intends to enable the state to severely limit the constitutionally protected civil liberties by a decree of three ministers, under the threat of draconian sanctions,” the former president warned on Tuesday.

The former president claimed the amendment allows ministries to establish a de facto state of war and cancel any cultural or social events without the approval of the government and parliament.

The speed of the adoption of this law is alarming, Klaus claimed, as the government allegedly justifies the rush with the plausible threat of an autumn wave of Covid-19.

The Chamber of Deputies wanted to discuss the amendment on Tuesday, however Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) vetoed the law.

SPD chairman Tomio Okamura told reporters that the pandemic law was only a differently-named state of emergency.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people in the center of Prague protested against the amendment with protesters building a wooden model of the gallows with the writing: “All traitors and their minions will end up on the gallows.”