The Czech Repulic must refuse to take part in the quota system for refugees, according to the country's president, Milos Zeman.
Originally, a group of 25 refugees from Iraq had been granted asylum in the Czech Republic's southern town of Jihlava within an Iraqi Christian resettlement program organized by the Generation 21 Endowment. The refugees were detained on the Czech-German border by German police while attempting to cross into Germany on a bus, before being handed over to Czech authorities.
"The experience with settling Christian refugees in the Czech Republic became a lesson for us. We need to stop the quota project as it is," Zeman's spokesman Jiří Ovčáček told CTK news agency.
"I believe that this clearly demonstrates the absurdity of quotas enacted in Brussels," Ovčáček added.
Ovčáček also said that Zeman supports the Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec. The minister earlier put on hold the operations of the "Generation 21" (Generace 21) charity, which previously handled the resettling of refugees in the country.
In early March, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka stated that the country was ready to accept refugees from Turkey, which will enable Prague to partially fulfill the EU mandatory quota scheme aimed at relocating 160,000 refugees among its member states. The Czech Republic pledged to relocate 2,000 refugees.
