Czech parliament calls to designate Hezbollah a terrorist group
The Czech Republic does not currently have its own list of terrorist organizations, and the legislature called to establish one and put Hezbollah on it.
By LAHAV HARKOV, ALEX WINSTON, EVE YOUNGCzech parliament building(photo credit: FLICKR/RICHARD WHITE)
The Czech parliament called on the government to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist group, in a resolution passed on Wednesday.The Czech Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the parliament in Prague, voted 63-7 to adopt the motion calling the Lebanese Shi’ite group “an indivisible whole and a terrorist organization that significantly destabilizes the Middle East region and, through its global network, also threatens all democracies.”The Czech Republic does not currently have its own list of terrorist organizations, and the legislature called to establish one and put Hezbollah on it.The resolution added that the parliament “rejects the misleading division of this organization into military and political parts, as this organization acts as an internally interlinked structure.”The European Union claims that there is a division between the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organization’s political and military wings, banning only the latter, though Hezbollah itself does not recognize such a division. The resolution also calls for Prague to push for the EU to abandon this policy.Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi thanked the Czech parliament on Thursday, saying that the decision follows similar decisions made by other countries in the EU and Latin America in the past months.“The decision of the Czech parliament against Hezbollah is another step in the Foreign Ministry’s effort to expand international pressure on Hezbollah,” said Ashkenazi. “I call on the European Union and other countries to recognize Hezbollah in all its arms as a terrorist organization.”Israel has asked its allies around the world to outlaw Hezbollah, and a growing list of countries has done so. On Thursday, Estonia announced sanctions against Hezbollah, and on Friday Guatemala became the eighth country to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization in 2020. Four EU member states have already banned Hezbollah.Ashkenazi said at the time that he was happy to see that diplomatic efforts “led by the Foreign Ministry to label all branches of Hezbollah a terrorist organization are bearing fruit and being recognized worldwide – and especially in Latin America.”
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