Czechia will prohibit people who have not been vaccinated from entering public spaces such as restaurants and shops from Monday. Negative Covid-19 tests will no longer be allowed.
Speaking on Wednesday, outgoing Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the country would adopt the so-called Bavarian model from Monday next week, prohibiting those who have not received a Covid-19 vaccine from entering public places. Those who have recently recovered from the virus will be allowed entry.
The country will enter a partial lockdown of the unvaccinated from Monday morning, assuming the restrictions are approved by the cabinet on Thursday.
“We will introduce the Bavarian model from Sunday to Monday. This means that entry to restaurants, service establishments, or mass events will only be allowed for vaccinated or survivors. Those vaccinated with a single dose must have a PCR test,” Babis said on local TV.
The prime minister said that self-testing would be completely cancelled, as he lamented unvaccinated people for clogging up hospitals and preventing treatment reaching those with other illnesses.
“The death toll is rising; the situation is serious. Vaccination is the only solution, there is no other,” he added.
The country is seeing a spike in infections, with a record 22,479 new cases reported on Tuesday.
The Bavarian model refers to strict anti-Covid measures introduced in the southern German state. Markus Soder, the state’s premier, claimed there was no choice but to implement “a kind of lockdown for the unvaccinated,” citing increasing pressure on hospitals and medical staff.
Meanwhile, some two million people in Austria who are yet to receive their Covid shots have been subject to the world’s first lockdown for the unvaccinated, in an effort to bring case numbers down.
While 68% of people are vaccinated in Germany, and 65% in Austria, just over 60% are vaccinated in the Czech Republic.
The EU must quickly seal its external borders to stem the flow of migrants who are no longer welcome in the 27-member bloc, according to Slovenia’s interior minister, whose country currently holds the presidency of the EU Council.
Speaking at the ‘Sarajevo Migration Dialogue’ on Thursday, Interior Minister Ales Hojs said EU countries were preoccupied recently with the coronavirus pandemic, the fall of the government in Afghanistan, and now a migrant crisis on the Poland-Belarus border, which he said was a hybrid war waged by Minsk against the EU.
“All three have additionally contributed to the increase in numbers of illegal migrants moving towards Europe and the Balkans, destabilizing the European Union,” Hojs told reporters.
The Slovenian minister said the current situation was similar to the 2015 influx of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa, when the EU admitted over one million people across its borders.
This time the situation is different, Hojs said, warning that “there is no more ‘refugees welcome.’”
“I believe that external borders must be secured, even with fences if necessary,” Hojs said, saying that he supported a plan for Brussels to finance the building of fences to reinforce the bloc’s borders.
He said it was important to strengthen cooperation and partnership across the EU in order to better manage migration and maintain security.
Thousands of migrants have been trying to cross the Belarus-Poland border in an attempt to reach the EU. They have been stranded at barbed-wire fencing with Polish border guards repelling their attempts to cross. Warsaw has accused Belarus of orchestrating the crisis to destabilize the EU and “weaponize” migration in an effort to have sanctions lifted.
A spokesperson for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko claimed on Thursday that Germany agreed to open a humanitarian corridor for 2,000 refugees on the border.
Criminals convicted of multiple cases of rape could face chemical castration in Pakistan as the country’s parliament supported new legislation aimed at tackling the rise in sexual offenses there.
The amendments to existing legislation, which allow for speedy conviction and harsher punishments for rapists, have been voted in by the MPs on Wednesday.
They introduce the death penalty or a life sentence for gang rape as well as chemical castration for repeat sex offenders, with the consent of the convict.
Chemical castration was described in the bill as a process through which “a person is rendered incapable of performing sexual intercourse for any period of his life, as may be determined by the court through administration of drugs.”
It’s planned to establish special courts across the country to make sure that verdicts in sexual assault cases are delivered “expeditiously, preferably within four months.” If chemical castration is assigned as a punishment, it “shall be conducted through a notified medical board,” according to the new legislation.
Mushtaq Ahmed, a senator for the religious Jamaat-i-Islami party, had earlier denounced the bill as un-Islamic. Ahmed argued that there was no mention of chemical castration in Sharia law and that rapists are to be hanged in public.
By resorting to drugs to reduce the libido of repeat sex offenders, Pakistan joins South Korea, Poland, the Czech Republic and some US states, where chemical castration has been introduced.
The measure was put on the table a year ago by Pakistani President Arif Alvi in response to a vast public outcry over a spike across the country in cases of rape involving both women and children.
Back then, Amnesty International decried chemical castration as a “cruel, inhumane” treatment, advising Islamabad to instead focus on reforming its “flawed” justice system and to ensure justice for the victim.
Local NGO War Against Rape told Reuters last year that less than 3% of sexual assault or rape prosecutions in Pakistan result in a conviction.
