Health and safety at the festival

The safety of festival attendees is crucial to us. We cooperate with the police, security agencies and other institutions. Together they help us maintain order not only during the parade on Saturday, but also at the other festival venues as well as elsewhere in the streets of Prague.

Security cooperation has multiple levels and is established much earlier than the festival itself. We take safety very seriously, but we cannot share the details for strategic reasons.

If you meet members of the police or security agencies at any of the festival venues, please keep in mind that they are there to ensure your safety. Feel free to treat them in a relaxed and friendly manner but allow them to do their job – respect their instructions.

The most important rule is: always avoid conflicts.  Never provoke a conflict, not even a verbal one. Don’t argue and don’t escalate the situation. Don’t let yourself be provoked, just walk away.

Immediately contact the police – call 112 (English-speaking operators guaranteed) or 158. The police have strategies and systems in place to help you as soon as possible and to resolve the situation with maximum efficiency and speed. Use this approach at the festival venues as well as outside the festival (for example, when you’re going home from a club in the evening).

You can also approach the police officers present at the venues. In an emergency, shout “Help!” or “Fire!” – this will attract the attention of many people.

In case of a problem that is not an acute threat, please contact our team of organizers. All team members carry the official tags. You can find the organizers all around festival events, especially at the Prague Pride infostand (merch is also sold there), which will be located in Pride Village as well as in Pride Park.

If you encounter hate crime both inside and outside the festival, please report it. In dealing with hate crime, we cooperate with In IUSTITIA, a non-profit organization providing legal aid and specialized in this matter. Together we run the #OZVISE (“#DONTSTAYSILENT”) project.

The effects of hate crime are serious. They affect mental health and foster a feeling of being under threat not only for the victim themselves, but also for other members of the group attacked. It doesn’t matter if it’s assault, verbal abuse, discrimination, online hate speech or any other instances.

In IUSTITIA helps victims of hate crime, which it also tracks. You can of course reject their help if you don’t want it. However, in reporting incidents, you provide information that helps prove the prevalence of hate crimes. Using these statistics, we can push for changes in legislation that would provide better protection against violence targeting LGBT+ people.

If people decide to contact the police personally, we recommend that they use the professional accompaniment of In IUSTITIA.

There is no specific form to report an assault to the police and it can be made at any police station at any time. Provide the police with a detailed description of the incident, including why you believe you were attacked because of your sexual orientation or gender identity. Request to hide your personal data. Your representative and confidant may be present during your testimony. If you do not speak Czech you have the right to a free interpreter. In the event of an online attack, provide the police with screenshots of the attacks, including the URL of the specific attack. In the event of a physical assault with medical consequences, provide the police with a medical report.

It is important to map prejudiced attacks. Currently, the Czech Republic does not have the corresponding official data, the problem of homophobic and transphobic violence is therefore invisible and legal protection is insufficient. You too can help change by making a notification (even anonymously) through this form, which works as part of the Rise up #ozvise project.

You can report hate crime