23 September 2024 | Not in our name! – For Just Peace in the Middle East
Dear Ms Voldánová, dear Mr Babík,
We are taking this opportunity to address you with regard to the approaching 12th International Conference in honour of the Václav Havel Prize Laureate organised by the Václav Havel Library together with Charter 77 Foundation on 2nd October 2024 at Prague Crossroads in Prague 1.
Being ourselves visitors to some of the events held by Václav Havel Library and also representatives of various initiatives engaged in human rights activism as well as in the ways of human rights being asserted in public space, we are somewhat taken aback by the choice of not only Jan Lipavský to present the opening statement but especially by the choice of Otakar Foltýn for one of the panel discussions.
We respect the right of the organisers to choose their speakers, and for that reason we hesitated whether to protest and in which way, however the declared purpose of the conference, as well as the fact that it is an open international conference, with the aim to highlight the present living legacy of Vaclav Havel´s human rights policies, we are obliged to raise our voice.
In the conference’s programme opening statement reference is made to the following quotes of Václav Havel: “Every one of us is responsible for the whole world“ and the only lost battle is the one that we give up on even before the battle started“. Nothing can be further removed from the spirit of his words than when these topics are heralded by the speech of Jan Lipavský. The minister whose irresponsible support of Israel renders each of us accomplice in the Israeli war crimes. A minister who gave up on the battle for a more balanced Czech approach to Israel/Palestine precisely at the time of Israel plausibly committing genocide and has therefore lost our struggle for a more dignified place amongst the nations of the international community. And nothing can be more absurd than Jan Lipavsky talking about the “failure of international law, of international justice and its mechanisms as principles by which international relations should be administered“. The very same failures which his ministry leadership creates through its efforts to block international prosecution of Israel’s war crimes.
If it is possible to regard Jan Lipavsky as only a career politician who behaves in this way purely for opportunist or exploitative reasons, then Otakar Foltýn stands for a type of public official who might very well be fully convinced of the verity of his own words but who however lacks any ability of self-reflection in case his words turn out to be false, propagandist or purposefully manipulative. It is however Otakar Foltýn himself who is the government commissioner for strategic communication and whose task it is to speak at this conference in the panel on the topic of propaganda and information manipulation. It will therefore happen that on „manipulation and lies“ a man will speak who spread demonstrable lies about a Hamas military command base under the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, who denied the apparent blockade and siege of Gaza, which had both been criticised by the international community, who downplayed the violence of the Israeli army and of illegal settlers against Palestinians in the West bank of the Jordan river, and who practically ruled out that the preliminary legal opinion of the International Court of Justice in the Hague from July 2024 is binding with regard to the duties of states to take measures to prevent Israel committing genocide in Gaza, a decision which is however binding also for the Czech Republic by nature of it being a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. By spreading disinformation and purposeful lies has Otakar Foltýn contributed to the rise in anti palestinian racism in Czech society, which results in the Czech society becoming cynical toward war crimes against Palestinians evidently perpetrated by Israel.
Finally, it appears to be very odd that at a conference dedicated to the legacy of Václav Havel’s commitment to human rights, a legacy, which is by nature of its matter of a rather dissenting character and which is supposed to stir the conscience of “each of us“, a person is to speak to the distinguished guests, it is a military officer and government commissioner who has a problem with basic communication and who switches over to vulgar insults towards his fellow countrymen with whom he disagrees or to whom he is incapable of proving the truthfulness of his statements.
Should this international human rights conference be taken seriously in its proclaimed declarations, we are convinced that the opening statement by Jan Lipavský as well as the panel representation of Otakar Foltýn should be reconsidered.
In Prague, 23rd September 2024
By the initiative: „Not in our name! – For Just Peace in the Middle East“
