Czech communists stick by nominee to head committee overseeing police supervisory body

The Czech communists have said they will not renounce their bid to have lower house lawmaker Zdeněk Ondráček head the committee which oversees the national police supervisory unit, GIBS.

The position of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia was repeated by the chairman of its lower house parliamentary group, Pavel Kovářik on Sunday on public broadcaster Czech Television.

Ondráček failed to be elected to the post last Friday although he was the sole candidate put forward. Some lawmakers have objected to the fact that as a member of the police he took part in the brutal repression of demonstrations against the communist regime at the end of the 1980s, including the protests that led to its overthrow in November 1989.