Czech activist sentenced to prison for calling to tear down Ukrainian flags
Kyiv • UNN
Jaroslav Popelka, 68, was sentenced to 6 months in prison for calling for the removal of Ukrainian flags from public buildings in the Czech Republic. He failed to appear in court and is now on the wanted list.
In the Czech Republic, a court sentenced 68-year-old activist Jaroslav Popelka, who called for tearing down Ukrainian flags from public buildings, to six months in prison. He did not appear in court and is now wanted by the police. This is reported by the iDNES edition, UNN reports.
Details
In 2023, the courts sentenced Popelko to a four-month suspended prison sentence with a probationary period of one and a half years for reporting that could cause panic. He was also banned from Prague for the next year and a half.
He violated the court's ban, and in June of this year, the activist was sentenced to two months in prison. However, Popelka did not go to prison because he was not found at his place of residence. The police put the man on the wanted list.
At the last hearing, on August 29, at the request of the prosecutor, the judge changed the probationary period to six months in prison. However, Popelka did not appear in the courtroom.
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Earlier, the activist stated through the media that he would not comply with the decisions of the Czech courts, as he did not consider them to be legal.
Yaroslav Popelka has repeatedly spoken out against Ukrainian flags on public buildings. In particular, at an anti-government demonstration in March 2023, Popelka called on the participants to tear down the Ukrainian flag from the National Museum, which eventually ended in a clash with the police.
He also wrote to some institutions that if they did not take down the flag, they could be subject to violence, including the use of Molotov cocktails.
