International ultraconservative organisations influenced the Czech lawmakers’ decision to reject the Istanbul Convention on Wednesday, Czech law analysts warned, adding that the decision was accompanied by a disinformation campaign.
The Czech Senate narrowly rejected ratification of the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, with only two additional votes needed to approve the document. According to Seznam Zprávy, Czech politicians were allegedly pressured by international ultraconservative organisations.
“Most of society is unaware that the debate on the convention was accompanied by a very strong disinformation campaign,” said Kristýna Benešová, a lawyer specialising in human rights and EU law, for Seznam Zprávy.
“The moment the Convention against Violence came to the force, dozens of chain emails flooded the email boxes of senators, with pamphlets from various very conservative to extremist organisations, such as the Polish Catholic organisation Ordo Iuris, known for its anti-abortion policy, or the Alliance for the Family,” Benešová says.
Ordo Iuris is a radical organisation in Poland, and the Alliance for the Family is its Czech partner. Ordo Iuris has also long supported the agenda of the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS). For example, when a large number of Polish municipalities declared themselves “LGBT ideology-free zones”, it was the organisation that helped create “pro-family” documents to accompany these declarations.
Benešová was contacted by one of the Czech senators to analyse documents he had received from Ordo Iuris before the vote.
“I received a four-page pamphlet from Ordo Iuris from the office of an unnamed senator. Since the senator was a critical thinker, he asked me if I could analyse the arguments from a legal perspective,” Benešová explained.
Czech Senator Václav Láska also mentioned the email campaign in his speech before the vote.
The Istanbul Convention was ratified by the EU in June 2023. However, it has yet to be ratified by several member states – namely Czechia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia.
The debate on the convention has been tense, with backers calling it an important step in protecting against violence, while critics accuse it of being ideologically loaded.
(Aneta Zachová | Euractiv.cz)
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