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Around 1,000 people demonstrated in support of President Miloš Zeman in central Prague on Saturday. Participants chanted "The Czech Republic for Czechs" and "We don't want multiculturalism," the Czech News Agency reported. A demonstration against xenophobia was also held and police led away participants who attempted to block the pro-Zeman group by sitting on the ground. The Czech president has been criticised by the UN commissioner for human rights and others for his comments on migrants and Muslims. A recent opinion poll suggested 41 percent of voters would give him their backing if he stood again.

The non-profit organisation Post Bellum has published a call warning against growing intolerance in Czech society. Numerous polls have suggested that a large part of Czech society has little sympathy, for example, for the plight of refugees from Muslim countries. The so-called Advent Appeal, signed by around 5,400 people including about 50 prominent figures, was launched as an alternative – primarily hoping to remind people of humanistic values.

The head of the Bloc Against Islam Martin Konvička has been charged with inciting hatred toward a group of people based on their religious beliefs. Most recently, the anti-Islam activist attended a rally in support of President Milos Zeman appearing onstage alongside the president on Nov 17th. The charge, according to reports, is however not related to his speech last week, but to incendiary statements several years ago.

It’s 9am on Sunday morning in late October and I’m in Studio Alta – a kind of artistic studio space – in Prague’s Holešovice district. I’m visiting an “Open Breakfast” or “Hate-free Breakfast” designed to bring together people of all kinds of faiths and backgrounds.

In this special programme on Czech Independence Day I am joined by noted historian Jan Rychlík, and we will also be hearing from Jan Hartl of the STEM polling agency. We will examine the influence of foreigners and minority groups in the Czech lands throughout history and try to gain a greater understanding of contemporary Czech attitudes in this regard.

President Miloš Zeman has come under fire for statements that he made on a visit to the Zlín region on Friday. In an informal debate with the employees of a local company, Mr. Zeman said that migrants of the Muslim faith had no desire to integrate and if they settled here they would not respect Czech laws but adhere to the sharia. He predicted that in due time Muslim women in Europe would be stoned and thieves would have their hands chopped off. Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier slammed the president’s words as “irresponsible scaremongering” and Deputy-Prime Minister Pavel Bělobrádek also took issue with the head of state, reminding him that the Czech Republic had a Muslim senator who abided by the country’s laws and respected European values.

Attacks targeted against Moslems in the Czech Republic have increased to 23 this year compared to 10 in 2014, the legal organisation In Iustitia has reported. Most of the recent attacks have taken place since the start of the immigrant crisis in June. Many of the attacks have been verbal or physical attacks on women wearing shawls over their heads. The organisation said there were three anti-Semitic attacks so far this year, the same as throughout the whole of 2014.

Senator Hassan Mezian, who was born in Damascus but has spent most of his life in the Czech Republic, says he welcomes the solidarity now being shown by some Czechs to Syrian refugees. But the country’s only Muslim lawmaker strongly condemns efforts, including on the part of the president, to stir up anti-migrant feeling.

On Tuesday, around thirty members of various religious denominations – including Muslims, Jews and Christians – sat down for a joint breakfast event in Studio Alta in Prague’s Holešovice district. The event, attended by community representatives, the South African and Kuwaiti ambassadors to the Czech Republic, and many ordinary members of the public, was organized by the Hate Free Culture Project. The breakfast is part of a wider effort by this organisation to foster greater understanding in the Czech Republic amidst heightened tensions over the

A series of statues of women who have been stoned appeared as several locations in Prague on Wednesday. The statues, showing women tied up and blood stained, were reportedly placed at the sites by supporters of the initiative “We don’t want Islam in the Czech Republic” and the “Block against Islam. Police said they were investigating the incident but had not immediately detected any illegal conduct.” A spokesman for one of the anti-Islamic groups said that the statues were meant to highlight the barbarities of Islam. The initiative has organised a number of demonstrations with one next week in Prague aimed at protesting against violence against women in Islamic countries.