Tomio Okamura, MP and head of the Czech opposition Dawn of Direct Democracy who recently called on Czechs to bother local Muslims by walking pigs close to mosques, today said he would not put out such a call on Facebook because it downplays the real danger of radical Islamism.
He reacted to the Dawn leadership’s condemnation of Okamura’s views.
“Such an article including pigs and kebabs unnecessarily belittles the issue and plays down the real weight of the danger. That is why I would definitely formulate it differently,” Okamura said.
Nevertheless, he said he is glad a debate on Islamism has started, though not in the best possible way.
On Monday, the instructions for the “protection” against Islam, signed by Dawn member Jiří Kobza and released by Okamura, were criticized by Dawn lawmaker and former diplomat Zdeněk Sarapatka, who announced he would no longer assist in preparing Dawn’s foreign political concept.
In the controversial article, the Dawn advises people to keep dogs and pigs and to go to walk them in the vicinity of mosques and other sites visited by Muslims. It also says people should not buy kebab, a meal often offered by Muslim vendors.
The article was aimed against immigrants in general. It calls on people not to vote in support of politicians who promise advantages to immigrants.
Okamura, who was born in Tokyo, is the son of a Japanese-Korean father and a Czech mother.
Okamura said he talked to Sarapatka on Monday, and they “resumed their cooperation” after agreeing to discuss Dawn’s foreign political statements with each other.
The Dawn movement’s leadership emphasized that Okamura is not the author of the controversial text.
It said radical Islamism is a problem since it goes counter to democratic constitutional principles.
Okamura has called for drafting a bill to enable the Czech Republic to deny residence permits to extremists or strip them of a previously granted residence permit.
Dawn lawmaker Marek Černoch said he will draft an amendment to the law on churches under which privileges would go only to the churches that recognize democratic principles.
The controversial article on Muslims, released by Okamura, a 42-year-old businessman, has attracted attention of foreign media.
In Germany, the case was presented by the magazine Der Spiegel and daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. They wrote that Okamura calls for Czechs to harass Muslims and boycott their business.
Okamura’s Dawn movement acquires more and more xenophobic features, the German media wrote, pointing out that only some 20,000 Muslims live in the 10.5 million Czech Republic.
Okamura’s activity has also been noticed by The Washington Post daily, which described the face of xenophobic demagoguery in the Czech Republic as rather curious compared with the rest of Europe.