FBI shuts down Czech neo-Nazi group web site

Blood and Honour operated on American server

The FBI has shut down a Web site operated by a Czech neo-Nazi group for having terrorist content, Hospodářské noviny wrote on Wednesday.

Czech police had been trying for years to convince the U.S. authorities to shut down the Web site. Until now, they had had no success, due to America's liberal communications laws.

"Due to the freedom of speech laws, these Web sites are not considered to be illegal in the United States," said František Valeš who monitors the sites for the Czech Helsinki Committee.

European neo-Nazi groups often post their Web sites on servers in the United States and other countries where media laws are more liberal. In Europe, Nazi propaganda is against the law. Now, however, the Czech branch of the neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour has made it onto the FBI's list of terrorist organizations, and the FBI has shut down the site.

Blood and Honour is an international neo-Nazi organization founded in the 1980s in London by Ian Stuart Donaldson, the lead singer of the skinhead band Screwdriver. Its aim, in addition to disseminating Nazi propaganda, is to make money to fund the movement through concerts and CDs.

"There were instructions on the manufacture of weapons and links to Combat 18," said the Karel Kuchařík, the head of the Czech police section on criminal communications. Combat 18 is the militant wing of the movement; the numbers refer to the initials of Adolf Hitler.

"We repeatedly asked the American police to give us information about the Web site administrators," Kuchačík said, adding that the Czechs found out the site had been blocked during routine monitoring – Americans had not bothered to inform them of the measure.

Czech police arrested the leaders of the Blood and Honour movement in 1999, and Jaroslav Brož, the head of the Plzeň branch was sentenced to four years in jail for distributing hate propaganda.

The FBI shut down the Polish Blood and Honour Web site two years ago.

The Prague Post