The last squat in Prague

Published on 7 July 2009 at 13:02

Describing the June 30 police swoop to empty Prague's last squat Milada, Respekt reports on what it terms "an attack against the last vestige of nonconformism in a gloomy city." The country's media remains divided over the question of Milada: some commentators see it as a symbol of an endangered subculture, while others claim it is an insult to the country's tax payers. Controversy erupted when the Minister for Human Rights, a former rocker and anti-communist activist, Michael Kocáb, came to the rescue of the squatters with an offer of accommodation in a building in central Prague to made available for the token rent of one Czech crown. The Prague weekly notes that an unintended consequence of this "humanitarian" initiative may be to bring about "a laughable end to squatting in the Czech Republic."

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