December 28, 2020
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Far right extremist groups are exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to seek public legitimacy for their ideological narrative. Now, the far-right groups in Central Europe have stepped up the anti-COVID-19 vaccine rhetoric.
In the Czech Republic, the Freedom and Direct Democracy (Czech: Svoboda a přímá demokracie, SPD) is a hard Eurosceptic and anti-immigration political party. Tomio Okamura is the founder and the main leader of the party. Last month, Okamura openly expressed his opposition to universal vaccination in the Czech Republic.
He wrote on Facebook on November 25, “I’ll put this brief and clear. The SPD movement disapproves of mandatory area vaccination with a vaccine for the coronavirus. It is not permissible to vaccinate our citizens with a sufficiently untested vaccine or condition civil liberties given by the constitution if citizens get vaccinated.”