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a p p e n d i x c Anti-extremist Legislation in Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Belgium This appendix gives the exact references and a brief summary of the contents of the special anti-extremist legislation passed in Czechoslovakia, Finland, and Belgium during the interwar years. Particular attention is given to legislation passed in Czechoslovakia and Finland with only a summary description of Belgian legislation, as it was less important and developed than in the other two countries.∞ c z e c h o s l o va k i a ≤ Law on extraordinary measures of 14 April 1920, n. 300 (SdGuV 1920, 796–98). This law stated that if the integrity of the state, its republican form, the public peace and order, the constitution, or the government were endangered, the government, with the approval of the President of the Republic (article 3) and the obligation to submit the decrees to the National Assembly within 14 days (article 15) could take extraordinary measures to suspend or temporarily restrict personal freedom, the freedom of habitation , the freedom of correspondence (article 1), as well as to impose restrictions on the freedoms of association, reunion, and the press (articles 8, 9, and 10). The governmental decree of 12 December 1920 n. 636 enacted such measures in several areas of the Sudeten regions (these would be withdrawn in January 1921—see SdGuV 1921, 8). The law of 10 July 1933, n. 125 (SdGuV 1933, 662–63) amended this law by modifying the expression ‘‘republican form’’ into ‘‘republican-democratic form.’’ This change was linked to the facts that the danger of an Habsburg restoration, which had arisen briefly in the early years of the Republic (Lemberg 1967), was now over and that the republic had to confront new challenges, formally republican but opposed to democracy. The law of 1933 tightened some of the provisions of the 1920 law. Law on jury trials of 15 April 1920, n. 268 (SdGuV 1920, 694). This law enabled the government (after consultation with the High Court) to suspend the use of juries in trials when events occur that justify concerns about the jury’s impartiality (article 1). This provision could be restricted to specific areas of the country and to specific crimes. It was applied in Sudeten areas in late 1920. Law for the Protection of the Republic of 19 March 1923, n. 50 (SdGuV 1923, 239–52). This law was the first general and encompassing legislative act that provided for the defense of the democratic state from extremist attacks in several areas. The law was passed after the murder of the Conservative Finance Minister Alois Rasin; in its first Anti-extremist Legislation 257 three articles were listed all the circumstances of threat to the republic, the state, and the constitution, which determine its application. Article 17 prohibited the establishment of, or participation in, any secret society aiming to undermine the constitutional form of the state. Article 13 forbade the formation of armed groups and their training in the use of arms. The same article prohibited the procurement, stockpiling, or transfer to any person firearms of any kind without o≈cial permission, and put every citizen under an obligation to report hidden arms to the authorities. Articles 7 and 8 explicitly protected the President of the Republic and the members of the government and of legislative bodies from attempts against their life and from bodily harm, respectively. The law also contained several provisions devoted to placing limitations on political propaganda, a prelude to the increasingly strict limitations on the freedom of the press that would be introduced in the following years. Article 11 stated that the personal honor of the President of the Republic could not be made the object of defamatory criticism. Article 14 protected the democratic opinion of loyal citizens and made it a punishable o√ense to incite violence and/or hatred or other hostile acts in public against specific groups of the population because of their nationality, language, race, religion, or nonadherence to a religious creed. (This provision was due to the circumstance that extremist propaganda often targeted not only individuals but also groups: Jews, Marxists, Freemasons, bankers, and so on.) Article 18 prohibited the spreading of false news where the perpetrator was aware that in doing so he was causing anxiety or apprehension in a section of the population, or if by such rumors, he damaged the safety of the state or caused public disorder. Article 16 forbade the public...

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