Greens call on Zeman to honour volunteers who work with refugees

The Green Party have called on the Czech president, Miloš Zeman, to honour volunteers who help refugees at a ceremony on Wednesday celebrating the foundation of Czechoslovakia. In an open letter, the Greens’ leader Jana Drápalová and party senator Václav Láska said they were not requesting state honours for volunteers, merely that the head of state thank them for their work. The president’s spokesman rejected the call. Mr. Zeman has been criticised for his comments on migrants and Muslims, with the UN’s high commissioner for human rights last week saying his repeated Islamophobic comments had contributed to xenophobic public discourse.

Author: Ian Willoughby