Prague - The upper chamber of Czech parliament passed a draft law today abolishing some of the traditional public holidays which senators considered either historically obsolete or outright alien.
International Women's Day is to be scuppered altogether along with the Family Day and the Day of Knowledge; the Labor Day (May 1) is to be celebrated in the future as the Spring and Labor Day.
The proposal now goes to the Chamber of Deputies where it may face more adversity as the house is split equally between the leftist and rightist forces unlike the Senate where the conservatives have comfortable majority.
The original proposal to change the law on public holidays came from independent senator Martin Mejstřík. He was also the one to suggest that International Women's Day be scrapped completely as it was inherently connected with the totalitarian regime in the former Czechoslovakia.
What Czechs celebrate
State holidays
January 1 - The Day of Recovery of the Independent Czech State
May 8 - Liberation Day
July 5 - The Day of Slavonic Apostles Cyril and Methodius
July 6 - Jan Hus Day
September 28 - Day of Czech Statehood
October 28 - The Day of Establishment of the Independent Czechoslovak Republic
November 17 - Day of Students' Fight for Freedom and Democracy
Other bank holidays
January 1 - New Year's
Easter Monday
May 1 - Labor Day
December 24 - Christmas Day
December 25 - First Christmas feast
December 26 - Second Christmas Feast
Significant days
January 27 - The Day for Remembering the Victims of Holocaust and Preventing Crimes against Humanity
March 8 - International Women's Day
March 12 - The anniversary of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
April 7 - Day of Knowledge
May 5 - The May Uprising of the Czech Nation
May 15 - Family Day
June 10 - Razing of Lidice
June 27 - The Day for Remembering the Victims of the Communist Regime
November 11 - The Day for War Veterans
"The communist regime was exploiting International Women's Day for the whole 40 years it was in power and it used it to glorify itself under the pretext of commemorating the women rights movement," Mejstřík wrote in the explication of the draft law.
"And while it was pompously celebrating IWD, it was at the same time committing heinous violations of the fundamental human rights of tens of thousands of women who were persecuted for their beliefs or even for those of their husbands and loved ones," he added.
Instead the former student leader from the days of the Velvet Revolution suggested to celebrate the politically neutral Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May.
Members of the constitutional and judiciary committee in the Senate then developed the proposal into a draft law, which also included a clause about renaming the Labor Day as the Spring and Labor Day.
And the same committee came up with the idea of abolishing the Day of Knowledge and the Family Day as "significant days" in the Czech public calendar, arguing that these had no relation to the Czech Republic.
