The Constitutional Court (ÚS) has rejected a complaint by the Centre of Muslim Communities in the Czech Republic against a recent police raid on their houses of prayer as unsubstantiated, ÚS spokeswoman Miroslava Sedláčková has told the Czech News Agency.
The court argued that the complaint was premature since Muslims had not used all other legal means to protect their rights, she added.
The Centre of Muslim Communities considers the police raid disproportionate and expedient. After it failed with its complaints addressed to the police and the Interior Ministry, it filed an administrative suit.
ÚS judge rapporteur Vojtěch Šimíček said the center should have first turned to a state attorney and then to the superior state attorney’s office.
Under the penal order, the state attorney is obliged to check the police steps during the raid, require copies of the police protocol and ask about the course of investigation, he added.
Muslims can file their complaint with the ÚS again if other legal means to protect their rights failed.
The April police raid on Muslim houses of prayer in Prague was motivated by a suspicion of the publication and distribution of a book spreading racism.
After the raid, the police accused a 55-year-old Czech man of support for and promotion of a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms.
According to the police, the crime was committed by publishing a Czech edition of The Fundamentals of Tawheed by Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips, a Muslim militant who seems to justify suicide bombing as part of jihad. The Centre of Muslim Communities published it in 2012.
According to available information, the accused is Vladimír Sáňka, director of the Islamic Centre in Prague.
The police intervention was criticized by Czech Muslims and the Indonesian Embassy in Prague as well as representatives of other religious communities in the Czech Republic.
However, the Interior Ministry concluded that policemen from the Squad for Uncovering Organized Crime had not violated the law during the raid.