Lower house votes to criminalize denial of communist crimes

The Chamber of Deputies has approved a law criminalizing the denial of communist crimes. Under the new law, those who deny crimes committed by Nazis and Communists against humanity could face up to three years in prison. The opposition Communist Party voted overwhelmingly against the bill, and when it was passed, party leader Vojtěch Filip reacted by saying the approval was one of the worst things to have happened to the party in Parliament. A similar bill was rejected in 2006, when MPs were unable to agree on the wording of separate, unrelated passages of the document. The bill now goes to the Senate for approval.

Author: Rosie Johnston