Drawing on his famous list of alleged collaborators with the communist-era secret police (StB), Cibulka accused his former colleague Hubert Rozmanitý, 80, of having been a communist agent.

A dissident jailed under the communist regime, Cibulka has degenerated into a figure of ridicule since the fall of communism. He squabbles with everyone, is incapable of presenting his ideas in balanced and rational terms, his words and actions marred by rabid, irrational anti-communism. In his view, the country is "run by a criminal elite" including "murderers." He is, simply, an eccentric.

But there's no reason why eccentrics should be punished by criminal law for their verbal statements. "There are struggles in Czech society with the issue of `extremist speech (emanating from both the far-right and the far-left) and the question of what are the acceptable parameters of public discourse," said the United States Helsinki Commission in its January 2002 report, Criminal Defamation and "Insult" Laws: A Summary of Free Speech Developments in the Czech Republic.

"It is sometimes argued that criminal defamation laws are necessary to achieve the legitimate goal of providing the victims of defamation with redress. But general laws against libel and slander, embodied in civil codes, provide private persons as well as public officials the opportunity to seek redress, including damages, for alleged defamation. In such cases, the plaintiff and defendant stand in court as equals. Accordingly, specific criminal laws prohibiting defamation are unnecessary. The use of criminal sanctions to punish defamation chills free speech, is subject to abuse (through the use of state law enforcement agents), and is inconsistent with international norms," said the commission, joining other international human rights organizations in demanding that criminal defamation laws be abolished.

It's certainly true that in the Czech Republic, the existence of the articles of the Penal Code that punish verbal statements has had a "chilling effect." There's a long trail of misery whereby individuals here have been found guilty for innocent, sometimes even unproven verbal statements. One of the most shocking examples was the slander case against Prague lawyer Petr Partyk (see "Free speech is ours, but don't dare use it," CBW, March 21, 2005), but there are many other instances.

The Czech authorities tried to punish Michal Zítko for publishing a Czech-language edition of Hitler's Mein Kampf. Former Prime Minister Miloš Zeman wanted reporters from weekly Respekt sentenced for defamation. Right-wing activist Jan Kopal was arraigned for saying that the U.S. deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Former TV reporter Jana Bobošíková was interrogated by the police for asking "the wrong type of questions" in an interview program.

Recently, European media and politicians mocked the Islamic world for being shocked by the publication of the caricatures of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark. But does Europe truly enjoy the free speech it boasts of? The long history of attempts to criminalize verbal statements in the Czech Republic is as embarrassing as was the recent sentence meted out in Austria to British historian David Irving for denying the Holocaust. No wonder the Arabic television station Al Jazeera had a field day pointing out the inconsistencies.