The Actual Reason and Scale of the Demonstrations Held in the Czech Republic

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On October 29th, Georgian-language Facebook users published a video of a demonstration held in the Czech Republic. According to the attached description, the video depicts a pro-Russian rally held in Prague attended by half a million people.

The video of the rally held in the Czech Republic is being circulated with a partly false description. The primary demand of the rally was the resignation of the pro-Western government, and not half a million, but only tens of thousands (no more than 70,000) people participated in it.

On October 28th, a rally called “Czech Republic First” was held in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The rally participants protested the increased prices, the reason for which, in their opinion, is the position of the Czech government in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Among the organizers of the rally were far-right political movements and the Czech Communist Party. Some of the organizers have been voicing pro-Kremlin and anti-vaxxer sentiments. The main demands of those gathered were the resignation of the government, the appointment of early elections and the start of a direct dialogue with Russia on the issue of natural gas supply. However, individual participants of the rally demanded the withdrawal of the Czech Republic from NATO, the European Union, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.

According to the estimation of the Czech police, tens of thousands of people attended the rally. According to reports in the Czech media, this demonstration was attended by fewer people than the previous two rallies of the same name since the beginning of September. Among them, the most numerous was the first assembly, attended by up to 70,000 people. According to the organizers, the number estimated by the police is wrong, claiming that the anti-government demonstration was joined by significantly more people than declared officially.

On October 30th, demonstrations in support of the incumbent government and Ukraine were held in Prague and several large cities of the Czech Republic. The rallies were organized by the “Million Moments for Democracy” movement, which held several pro-Ukraine rallies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The political movement was founded in 2018, and its initial goal was to collect a million signatures demanding the resignation of Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. Babiš was accused of embezzling funds allocated from the United Nations. The trial against him is still ongoing.

According to the Czech police, tens of thousands of people attended the rally on October 30th, and according to the Czech media, more people joined the rally compared to the anti-government demonstration. The participants of the rally also watched a video address of the first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, who expressed her gratitude to the Czech Republic for the help provided to Ukraine.

The Czech Republic has granted visas to more than 450,000 Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war. In addition, the Czech Republic also helps Ukraine with arms.


The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.

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Topic: Politics
Violation: Partly false
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