Babiš urged to cancel Czech Human Rights Council appointments

Czech human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Prague Pride, have demanded that Prime Minister Andrej Babiš reverse the appointment of three new members to the government's Human Rights Council — Kříž, Black and Kuchařová. The cabinet appointed them last week, after around fifty experts resigned when responsibility for human rights policy was shifted to three ministries; the renewed council will meet for the first time on 30 September.

Mass resignation of experts and a new appointment

In late June, around fifty experts simultaneously resigned from the government's human rights councils. The trigger was the transfer of the human rights agenda from the Government Office to three ministries — specialists feared the issue would lose weight and that protection of vulnerable groups would slip down the agenda. Last Monday the cabinet filled the ranks of three councils at once, and seven new members joined the renewed Government Council for Human Rights, among them Kříž, Black and Kuchařová. According to available information, even the government's human rights commissioner and head of the ANO parliamentary group, Taťána Malá, did not know about the nominations in advance. The council in its new composition will meet for the first time on 30 September.

What the new members are accused of

Human rights organizations — among them Amnesty International, the Jsme fér initiative, Prague Pride, which supports LGBT+ people, Trans*parent, which helps transgender people, and the Czech Women's Lobby, an umbrella group for dozens of organizations defending the rights of women, children and families — examined the biographies of the new council members in detail. According to them, Kříž opposes equality for queer people, seeks a total ban on abortion, rejects a ban on corporal punishment of children, and has previously argued that the seal of confession should take precedence over the duty to report violence or rape. Black, who underwent gender transition and later reversal surgery, advocates banning such operations. In the organizations' view, Kuchařová showed a lack of understanding of human rights and insensitivity toward vulnerable people when she invoked queer themes during her own divorce.

What rights advocates say

“The government's advisory body on human rights must not be turned into a platform for cutting freedoms and rolling back rights that have already been secured,” the organizations said in a joint statement. They called on Prime Minister Babiš, as chair of the council, to examine the record of the three new members closely and cancel their appointment.

Johanna Nejedlová, head of the Konsent organization, believes Czechia has enough genuinely qualified experts — including from church circles, conservative circles or academia — to ensure real plurality of opinion. “If these are the people advising the government, the prime minister is thereby signalling that he does not care about the safety of women or children threatened by violence within the church,” she said.

Karel Nodes of Amnesty International sees the appointment of the three as another link in a chain of steps weakening the Czech human rights framework, following the transfer of the agenda and the experts' resignation. “We are now watching as a key government advisory body is being filled with people whose past public record raises serious questions about the rights of women, LGBT+ people and other minorities. We fear Czechia is embarking on a path of eroding human rights standards, where the protection of rights deteriorates not through one high-profile decision but through a series of small steps,” he said.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz