Is there growing intolerance to the LGBTQ+ community in Czechia?

In response to a recently foiled plot targeting the Rainbow Pride march in Slovakia, police have ramped up security for this week’s Prague Pride Festival. The Interior Ministry has deployed riot police, anti-conflict teams, and additional personnel to oversee over 200 events across Prague, anticipating around 60,000 participants. So are we seeing growing intolerance to the LGBTQ+ community in Czechia? I spoke with Georgy Kalakutskii from Group ComingOut, an organization supporting the Russian LGBTQ+ community.

How do instances of violence against the LGBTQ+ community in Czechia compare to those in other European countries?

“I wouldn’t say that Czechia is completely unique, but it certainly stands out. Recently all around the EU we see this rise of violence against LGBTQ+ people but especially trans and intersex people. And Czechia today is on the same level as Poland and Italy.

“For me, it’s a scary thing to say because normally we see that Czechia is much more supportive. And yet today the research shows it is somewhere in there. The main reason for that violence, and all around Europe, is lack of policies against both hate speech and hate crime because one leads to another.”

Do we know how frequently these incidents of violence against LGBTQ+ individuals are reported to the authorities?

“Yes, the violence is very difficult to speak about because, as you can imagine, there is a huge distrust toward police and the general government when it comes to such sensitive matters. So, we know that, for instance, only 11 percent of victims of such violence report discrimination in the EU, which might be smaller in Czechia.

“So, answering your question, we know about the numbers of harassment in general – over half of the LGBTQ+ population in the EU now face discrimination in different ways. It means that there is a smaller proportion of people who meet and face physical violence.”

Do you think there is a correlation between social attitudes and the fact that there is no push for protection against hate speech and violence in general?

“This one is a pretty tricky one. Something we know about Czechia – and I really would like to praise all the people working on this – is that more than half of Czech citizens are supportive of equal marriage law. This means that we have this huge amount of people who are supportive and yet on the legal level we do not see anything coming into place.

“From what I see from the local activists is that politicians in power are not sure if they should support that legislation. And that’s because many politicians are trying to imagine this whole community as a scapegoat. A scapegoat is a very useful thing to have these days.

“So, I would say societal attitudes are in a way shaped by policy rather than the other way around. Today we see the lack of policy toward this interest in looking into the equal marriage law.”