Wednesday, December 20, 2000

Hitler's 'Struggle' divides Czechs Publisher's conviction over printing of Mein Kampf fires free speech debate By Brian Hannon Michal Zitko is unequivocal about the message sent by his conviction for publishing a Czech translation of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. "This decision is one of the symbols of the liquidation of the freedom of speech," Zitko told The Prague Post. After a one-day trial earlier this month, a Prague 7 District Court sentenced Zitko to a suspended three-year term and fined him 2 million Kc ($50,000), a hefty amount by Czech standards, for "dissemination of a movement aimed at repressing rights and freedoms." In layman's terms, he was convicted of disseminating Nazi propaganda. Although the sentence was the minimum for the rare charge, the fact that Zitko was prosecuted and sentenced was an unsettling precedent in a nation that won its freedom from communism in 1989. In March, Zitko's small Prague-based publishing house, Otakar II, printed a new Czech translation of Hitler's acrimonious tome without the legally required annotations, which are mandated to denounce the Nazi legacy. Zitko, 29, was immediately assailed by Jewish groups and the government, while some free speech advocates defended his right to publish what were called "historical documents" in a post-communist society. Police seized the book from shelves in a nationwide raid last summer. The swift conviction upped the stakes in a growing debate over Nazi ideology in a region that is increasingly associated with neo-Nazi movements and violence. Before the Mein Kampf incident, Zitko's credentials as an independent publisher were stalwart. Otakar II had already put a new translation of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution on Czech shelves, and was planning to release a translated version of Karl Marx's seminal work, Das Kapital . But it was his risky decision to print 100,000 copies of Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler's sprawling autobiography that is hateful toward Jews and recommends the creation of an Aryan race, that propelled the Zitko to unwanted notoriety. He said the print run was increased after media attention on its March release, and was hiked further after he was charged. Zitko's defense attorney, Tomas Sokol, swiftly appealed the sentence. "We are convinced that there was no crime committed," Sokol said. "The book cannot support a movement that aims to suppress human rights because no such movement exists [in this case]." Zitko, who has disdained the legal and political forces arrayed against him, said the trial was a throwback to communist jurisprudence. "[It] takes us back by 10 years, to times of advanced prepared verdicts without the use of arguments," he said. He noted that it took one day, Dec. 11, to draft the four-page decision against him. He claimed it had been written "long in advance." Czech Human Rights Commissioner Petr Uhl disagreed strenuously. "The situation today is really not the same as 10 years ago," Uhl said. "I was the witness and often the victim of how the courts functioned under communism. Nothing similar took place in the trial with the Mein Kampf publisher." Conflicting views But the gap between Uhl and Zitko was emblematic of a deeper conflict. Zitko thinks the availability of Mein Kampf is a vital tool in educating Czechs about the ideology responsible for the murder of thousands of their countrymen in concentration camps and the brutal suppression of the entire nation after the 1938 annexation. "I consider this book to be a part of history and it is therefore necessary to publish it," he said. "They had no problems publishing it in other countries." But some nations do in fact have trouble. While American and British readers can easily find Mein Kampf in bookstores, Germany, Hungary and Austria -- Hitler's birthplace -- have all banned its publication. It also is available on the Internet, but usually in excerpted forms. And officials in Slovakia are considering prosecuting a publisher, Agnes Burdova, whose printing of Mein Kampf has just appeared on shelves in that country. "I don't see any reason why Slovakia shouldn't prevent the spread of literature that is at variance with basic trends of the country's development," Slovak Deputy Prime Minister Lubomir Fogas said during a visit to Prague. Burdova's version did contain a commentary pointing out its racist content. Prague 7 State Attorney Ivona Horska, the prosecutor, dismissed Zitko's historical justification as a misrepresentation. "The way this book was published is not in the spirit of a historical document," she said. Horska claims the foreword was incomplete in its discrediting of Hitler's ideas, which is demanded by law. Previous translations have contained stern disclaimers. "There is only the foreword, which says that fascism is damaging," something she claimed is "a generally known fact." Zitko believes his small operation was an easy scapegoat for a Czech government that cannot keep track of the surge of books, magazine articles and television shows dealing with Nazism. "The cancer [of censorship] first of all attacks those who offer less resistance. It is obvious that a small publisher is an easier target than the public television," he said. "I was picked as an example to be punished for all the [Heil Hitler] hailing skinheads, for the wall on [Usti nad Labem's] Maticni street, for all that this and the previous governments failed in." In 1999, local residents in the town of Usti nad Labem erected a wall-like fence to segregate Roma from their neighbors. It was taken down after government pressure. Defense attorney Sokol thinks civil liberties are jeopardized. "Nothing should be banned because a ban leads to limitation of the freedom of speech," Sokol said. Rights Commissioner Uhl said the verdict guaranteed broader freedoms. "Rights in general are based on a 'limited' right of speech," he said. "The limits of human rights are [reached] where they intervene in the rights of other people." Other politicians had mixed reactions. Hana Orgonikova of the ruling Social Democrats (CSSD) said "the court's decision was based on the social peril of the case." Democratic Union (DeU) Chairman Ratibor Majzlik said he is "against all bans," adding that the verdict punishes one political system that subjugated Czechs without addressing another. "I think that this was a one-sided verdict because on one hand we have the communist ideology, which is still present, and on the other there is the fascist ideology, and both move on the same level," he said. Jan Hladky, who directs Prague's Vydavatelstvi Dum publishing company, noted that the Zitko verdict invited suggestions that "any literature about communism should be taboo, too. Nothing about Stalin, Lenin or Marx could be published." Such a ban would only keep Czechs mired in ignorance, he said. "There would be an information hole ... from the '30s to the '90s," Hladky said, adding that the verdict "offends freedom of speech, press and expression." "This is a bad precedent," Hladky added. According to Sokol, the verdict has put a mean twist in the post-1989 free speech debate. "Unless a person likes to take risks, he will think twice before publishing a book like this," he concluded. -- With Petr Kaspar Brian Hannon's e-mail address is bhannon@praguepost.cz