Man Detained at Prague Communist Party Rally After Wearing T-Shirt with "Z" Symbol — Faces Up to Three Years in Prison

Police detained a man at Malostranská Square in Prague after he showed up wearing a T-shirt with the letter "Z" at a rally held by the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM). The event, called "Stop the Czech Maidan!", drew around 200 people, with speakers including KSČM Member of the European Parliament Kateřina Konečná.

According to police spokesman Jan Danek, the man was detained on the spot, and investigators from Prague police's extremism and terrorism unit informed him he was suspected of a crime — denying, disputing, approving of, or justifying genocide. Attention was first drawn to him through a video published by the tabloid Blesk, which quickly spread across social media. The case is being handled under an expedited fourteen-day procedure, and the man faces up to three years behind bars.

Not the First Case of Its Kind

The public display of the letter "Z" has already come before the Czech Supreme Court. In July this year, the court rejected an appeal filed by a former municipal politician who, in April 2024, walked through the center of Pardubice wearing a hoodie emblazoned with a large "Z", the Cyrillic phrase "For Victory," and other pro-Russian symbols. The man was given a six-month suspended sentence with a two-year probation period for publicly endorsing a crime against peace.

The Supreme Court stressed that criminal liability doesn't require a verbal statement — what matters is the meaning of the symbol in a given context, and public support can be expressed through clothing itself. The court also dismissed the argument that the "Z" symbol doesn't appear on any official list of banned signs.

Source: novinky.cz