Ministry ordered to pay compensation over police brutality at free festival

A Prague court has ordered the Czech Interior Ministry to pay compensation to two victims of police brutality. Pavel Kuchář will receive CZK 60,000 and Ondřej Holous CZK 40,000 after police officers were ruled to have used excessive force against them during an operation aimed at breaking up a free techno music festival in 2005. The two, who were appealing against a previous ruling in which they got less compensation, told the court that the police had beaten them up and then aimed tear gas at them after they had been restrained. The police’s response to the unauthorised Czechtek festival provoked a heated debate at the time.