The Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement has vowed to appeal after a Prague court fined the party 3 million crowns (€124,000) over election posters that judges ruled amounted to incitement to hatred.

The District Court for Prague 1 imposed the fine over two posters used by SPD during its 2024 regional and Senate election campaign. The verdict is not final, and SPD leader Tomio Okamura said the movement was prepared to take the case as far as the Constitutional Court.

“The aim of our posters was not to incite hatred, but to name the problems that really exist,” Okamura said, as cited by Echo24.

The case concerns one poster showing a Black man holding a bloody knife, with blood on his shirt, alongside the text: “Deficiencies in healthcare will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons'” and “Stop Migration, then the EU.”

A second poster showed two Romani boys smoking a cigarette. Its accompanying text read: “They say let us go to school, but ours are stuck…” and “Support only for families where children complete their schooling!”

SPD, which now forms part of the governing coalition in Czechia, denies that the campaign was criminal, arguing that it was communicating political positions on the European Union migration pact and the abuse of social benefits. Okamura said the party was being unlawfully punished for expressing its opposition to illegal migration and to welfare payments for families who do not send their children to school.

“In no way were we targeting racial motives,” he said.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Okamura held up the posters and said, “A fine of 3 million crowns for a truthful poster “Stop the EU Migration Pact”? We disagree and will file an appeal!

Judge Ivana Tichá said the issue was not whether SPD was entitled to hold political views, but how those views were communicated to the electorate.

“Having an opinion and the way in which I express that opinion are two different things,” she said.

According to the judge, the campaign placed groups into a hostile “them and us” relationship with the rest of Czech society.

Okamura rejected the reasoning and accused the judge of trying to dictate the boundaries of political campaigning. He claimed she had sought to influence Czech politics by lecturing the party on how an election campaign should be conducted.

“In our opinion, the single judge clearly had a verdict prepared in advance, regardless of the main trial and evidence,” he said.

The SPD leader described the proceedings as an important precedent for freedom of speech and democracy. He has consistently argued that the prosecution of both him and the movement is political and was intended to influence last year’s parliamentary elections.