Activists Replace Prague Castle Flag with Underwear

Art group Ztohoven covertly scaled Prague Castle to erect a giant pair of underpants

Dave Park

Written by Dave Park Published on 21.09.2015 10:04:59 (updated on 21.09.2015) Reading time: 1 minute

The local protest-art collective Ztohoven have made a name for themselves through their past stunts, whether adding a cross to the memorials at Old Town Square (which went unnoticed for days) or hijacking a live Czech Television weather forecast with footage of an atomic blast.

Their elaborate, year-long identity fraud to protest Czech identity cards was documented in the film Občan K.

On Saturday, the group reached new heights (literally) with their latest public protest, scaling the outer walls of the Prague Castle to erect a giant pair of red boxers in place of the Castle flag:

The stunt was quickly picked up by international media, making its way to the Washington Postthe BBC, The Independent, and elsewhere.

A statement released on the group’s Facebook page yesterday details their motivation for the stunt as a protest against president Miloš Zeman, who among other offenses (in their words) “[associates] with questionable dictators” and “[used] the word “cunt” in national media to divert attention from his own trip on the private jet of an oligarch.”

Local politicians were surprisingly upbeat in reaction to the stunt. 

“The country that gave the world Jára Cimrman can undoubtedly cope with the huge underpants flying over the castle,” Premier Bohuslav Sobotka told Novinky.cz.

“Own up, who’s missing a pair of red boxers?” Minister of Agriculture Marian Jurečka wrote on Twitter.

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