Legislators from Prague 6 once again called on Zeman to abolish checks at the entrances to the Castle Company News Pražská Drbna
After a year, Senator Jiří Růžička and MP Jan Lacina (both for STAN) from Prague 6 again called on President Miloš Zeman to have the entrance security checks on the Prague Castle complex lifted. In an open letter, we described it as unnecessary, disgraceful and contrary to the positions of previous democratic presidents. They made a similar request to the head of state at the end of 2018 and 2020. The castle refused to meet these challenges by pointing to the need to ensure security, to which he added protection over the coronavirus epidemic over the years.
The security checks of the republican police were introduced at the Castle in 2016, and were resumed in early May this year after the Easter break. According to Senate Vice-President Růžička and Deputy Mayor of the Sixth District of Lacina, there is no relevant reason to check. “Another year has passed without the slightest hint of a threat of a threatened terrorist attack in the Czech Republic. And we, as representatives of the Prague and Czech public, are once again facing embarrassment when entering the Prague Castle complex in the same embarrassment as in the past,” stated by the politician.
Due to the coronavirus epidemic, Prague Castle is preparing to disinfect the areas accessible to visitors. He has to pay about a quarter of a million crowns for it, the iROZHLAS.cz server said today with a link to a publicly available report. The castle in Lány, where there is currently …
According to them, Zeman should contact the relevant security forces and have it checked whether there are further general inspections of all incoming visitors to the Prague Castle complex. “According to all available information, which we, as members of both chambers of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, find us, it seems to us that we do not,” the senator and the deputy added.
In a similar letter last year, Růžička and Lacina stated that she considered the complete closure of a part of the city to be non-standard, unacceptable and could not be considered an expression of will and absence not only for the inhabitants of Prague but also for the citizens of the whole Czech Republic. President’s spokesman Jiří Ovčáček said that ensuring the health and safety of visitors came first and that measures for museums and galleries, as well as measures for castles, chateaux and monuments, could not be automatically applied to the Prague Castle complex. He then drew attention to the risk of forming queues. The castle refused to cancel the inspection this year, even though the president is staying at the chateau in Lány in the Kladno region after the autumn hospitalization.