In the Czech Republic, a teacher was sentenced to seven months of probation with a probationary period of 20 months for denying Russian war crimes in Ukraine, UNN reports with reference to Ceske Noviny.
Details
According to the information, the court sentenced teacher Martina Bednarzhova to seven months of probation with a probationary period of 20 months, and also banned her from teaching for three years. She will also have to take a course to improve her media literacy. However, the decision is not final.
Judge Eliska Matyashova stated that the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine was condemned by most countries of the world, which was widely reported at the time when Bednarzhova was lecturing students.
"This means that the defendant should have known about it," the judge said.
She noted that if Bednarzhova had made similar statements, for example, in the presence of her friends, she probably would not have been prosecuted.
"In this case, it is harmful precisely because she chose children of 13, 14 years old, whom she took hostage and who could do nothing but sit and absorb her views," the judge said.
She emphasized that no one condemns Bednarzhova for her opinion.
"The accused can think whatever she wants, but she should not abuse her position as a teacher," Matyashova said.
It is reported that the judge ordered the teacher to take a media literacy course, because, according to her, she had problems distinguishing disinformation from propaganda.
The Prague 6 District Court was considering this case for the third time. He acquitted the teacher twice, and the Court of Appeal upheld the verdict the second time. However, in January of this year, the Supreme Court overturned the verdicts, ruling that the courts should focus more on whether Bednarzhova fulfilled the objective and subjective aspects of the crime.
According to the media, during a stylistics lesson in April 2022, Bednarzhova told eighth-graders that the Russian invasion was a "justified settlement of the situation", denied the events in Kyiv and called Czech television biased. She also repeated the narratives of Russian propaganda about "Ukrainian Nazis" in Donbas. Some students recorded her words.
Bednarzhova, who is running for the Chamber of Deputies in the autumn elections on the Prague list of candidates from the Stačilo! movement, describes her process as political and today reiterated that she stands by her statements. She also spoke about the fact that the Russian population was tortured in Ukraine and that the massacre in Bucha has not yet been investigated. According to her, the media does not cover the conflict truthfully.
After the incident, the teacher with thirty years of experience was fired, after which she unsuccessfully tried to settle a labor dispute with the school.