Czech parliament row: “menopause” shout at STAN’s Šebelová

The overnight session of the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday ended in a scandal: SPD MP Miroslav Ševčík shouted “menopause” at Michaela Šebelová, chair of the STAN caucus, and after the session an argument broke out outside the chamber between MPs and Tomio Okamura.

Shortly before midnight, the chamber interrupted the debate on next year’s budget. When Šebelová asked for a break after a series of other speakers, Ševčík, according to STAN leader Vít Rakušan, repeatedly shouted remarks while standing in front of the lectern. Šebelová had joined colleagues from ODS, TOP 09 and KDU-ČSL and announced that STAN was taking a two-hour break to follow the previous one. In response, a mocking “menopause” rang out from the floor.

When Šebelová tried to point out this behavior to Ševčík after the session, he raised his voice at her. Rakušan, together with other colleagues, including Martin Kupka, stood up for her and demanded that Ševčík apologize. According to Rakušan, Chamber Speaker Okamura also joined the exchange, and Rakušan had expected him to condemn the boorishness. Instead, Rakušan says, he heard only shouting interspersed with swearing, and insults.

Okamura believes it was Rakušan who failed to keep the situation in hand: “Rakušan and Kupka got carried away by their emotions,” he said. He says he repeatedly urged MPs to behave decently. He called Ševčík’s expression inappropriate but, as he added, insults aimed at opposition MPs are just as inappropriate. By his account, he arrived at the conflict by chance, and in front of the chamber the leaders of opposition parties verbally attacked him. “It was not far from a physical attack,” Okamura said. He himself, he says, used nothing vulgar.

The STAN movement intends to raise the matter at the Mandate and Immunity Committee as well.

Ševčík’s behavior also angered the head of the ANO caucus and government human rights commissioner Taťána Malá. In her words, such talk may be heard in a pub, but even there it is stupid and inappropriate, and she expects a completely different level of language from an academic. Malá believes the apology should be not for the word “menopause”, which is not offensive in itself, but for the context in which Ševčík used it. The farce the opposition made of the budget debate is no excuse either, she added: everyone, the opposition included, should keep their nerves in check.

The Wednesday session was ultimately adjourned at 11:17 p.m. until Thursday: Olga Richterová, head of the Pirate caucus, had also asked for a break, of 1 hour 45 minutes.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz