Thousands of people protested against high living costs and the government’s military support for Ukraine in the Czech capital Prague.

Under the banner “Czechia Against Poverty”, the protest was organised by the Pravo Respekt Odbornost (PRO) party on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

In addition, protestors demanded to halt arms deliveries to Kiev and put forward a proposal to hold a peace conference in Prague. Some held banners explicitly against the country’s membership of the NATO.

Though the year-on-year inflation in the Czech Republic fell to 16.7 per cent in February from 17.5 per cent in January, this was still well above the tolerance threshold of 3 per cent set by the Czech National Bank.

An analysis performed by PAQ Research and published by Czech Radio in December 2022, predicted that up to 30 per cent of households in the Czech Republic could fall into poverty on the back of rising energy and housing costs this year.

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)