Does the Czech government "care more about foreigners than its own people" because it did not provide special government planes to evacuate Czech tourists stranded in Rhodes as a consequence of the wildfires that hit the Greek island? No, that's not true: The Czech Foreign Ministry sent several consulate officials to help Czech tourists leave Rhodes, and the government organized several repatriation flights for them. Army planes are also ready to fly to Rhodes if needed, authorities have announced.
The claim was made in a video (archived here) on TikTok on July 24, 2023, with the captions (Czech translated into English by Lead Stories staff) "Several thousand Czechs stranded in Rhodes, Greece, because of wildfires" and "these are the government's priorities." The person speaking in the video, posted by user @pepekarna, is politician Tomio Okamura, leader of Freedom and Direct Democracy, a populist, right-wing, opposition party. He says (Czech translated into English by Lead Stories staff):
The government sent two officials on the island but (what will it take) for the Czech citizens to see a special government plane, that Fiala´s government provided, with our taxpayers' money, to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to fly around Europe ...? That is what our citizens clearly won´t get. Well, this government serves foreigners and not Czech citizens.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jul 25 08:04:40 2023 UTC)
The Czech government has, actually, provided assistance to Czechs stranded in Rhodes, and continues to do so: Three repatriation flights to bring some 800 Czech tourists home from the Greek island had been organized as of July 24, 2023, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told state broadcaster CT24. Lipavsky added that a fourth flight to Rhodes was being planned and that the ministry had no evidence of tourists in a critical situation. He also said that all Czechs should have a secured seat on either a repatriation flight or on commercial flights.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala repeatedly tweeted that the army is ready to immediately send planes to Rhodes, or other places, if Czech citizens are endangered by the wildfires. The government is working with fire brigades and travel agencies to continue bringing people home and is not underestimating the situation, he tweeted on July 24, 2023. Fiala had specified on July 23, 2023, that army planes were ready to leave immediately to help Czech citizens, if the repatriation flights provided were not sufficient.
The Czech Foreign Ministry said there were 4,500 Czech tourists in Rhodes, as people continued to arrive for vacation in areas not affected by the wildfires, iDnes reported. The ministry also sent a team of consulate officials to help people at the Rhodes airport, it tweeted on July 24, 2023.
Lead Stories has previously debunked a claim that the government had committed treason by lending a special government jet to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy here.
