News

Churches in Prague are planning a Night of Open Churches on January 21, as part of a week of ecumenical meetings and services. Organisers said they had been inspired by similar events in Austria, where such open nights are held annually in big cities. The whole thing is set to begin with a service at St Kliment’s Greek Catholic Church on Karlova Street near Charles Bridge.

Czech European Affairs Minister Alexandr Vondra met with visiting Chinese State Councillor Hua Jianmin on Monday. At a news conference following the meeting, Mr Vondra said that the Czech Republic plans to engage China in a dialogue on human rights during the Czech presidency of the EU. Alexandr Vondra said that China was a country with “an improving human rights situation” but progress in this area is slow. According to the Czech European Affairs Minister, the Czech Republic has several concrete ideas how to foster human rights in China. The Czech Republic will assume the EU presidency in January 2009, a year which will mark 20 years since the fall of communism and the country’s return to democracy.

The National Committee of the coalition Christian Democrats recommended to the party’s MPs and senators on Monday to vote for the incumbent Václav Klaus in the presidential election to be held in February 2008. Meanwhile, some Christian Democratic MPs and senators had already expressed support for Jan Švejnar, the other presidential hopeful who was nominated by the opposition Social Democrats and the coalition Greens. The successful candidate will need a majority of 141 votes in the Parliament.

German neo-Nazis are calling on their supporters to join in a march through Plzeň, western Bohemia, on January 19. The march is organized by a Czech far-right, nationalist group Narodní Odpor, or National Resistance, in protest against alleged restrictions on freedom of speech. The protesters are planning to march past Plzeň’s Great Synagogue only a day before the 66th anniversary of the first transports of local Jews to Nazi extermination camps. The police are expecting that several hundred radicals might arrive from Germany for the occasion. Meanwhile, Plzeň’s Jewish community and other Czech Jewish organisations are summoning a protest rally in front of the local Jewish house of prayer.