Czech court sentences man who praised deadly #terrorist attack on New Zealand mosques to six years in prison, the longest such sentence yet

News server iDNES.cz has reported that on Tuesday, 16 March the Brno Regional Court in the Czech Republic sentenced a man who praised the 2019 terrorist attack in New Zealand during an online discussion to six years in prison for promoting terrorism. The verdict has yet to take effect and the defendant plans to appeal to the High Court in Olomouc, according to iDNES.cz. The Czech courts have been dealing with many such cases involving people expressing approval online for the attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, but before this verdict the defendants had all been given suspended sentences. In March 2019 a right-wing extremist from Australia shot dead more than 50 children, men and women during the attacks. The terrorist broadcast his rampage live online. “That’s giving them a taste of their own medicine. Good job???!” posted Benedikt Čermák online beneath a video recording of the rampage; he has now been sentenced to the six-year prison term. Čermák defended himself by claiming he had not been approving of the crime, but calling on others to reflect on it. “I disagree with what was done. This was my comment on the fact that the shoe was now on the other foot and suddenly there is a different [non-Muslim] psychopath shooting the Muslims dead,” iDNES.cz quoted Čermák as saying. The judge disagreed with Čermák’s claims. “The defendant was not expressing a sense of pity over what happened, just a sense of self-pity. From the wording of his comment it is possible to deduce that he was not criticizing what happened, but praising it,” the judge said when explaining the verdict, according to iDNES.cz. 

via romea.cz: Czech court sentences man who praised deadly terrorist attack on New Zealand mosques to six years in prison, the longest such sentence yet