A celebrity politician has been jailed for rape. Will Czech women be listened to now?

He was spoken of as an extraordinary talent. A rising star with a million followers on Instagram, who made politics relevant for younger generations. As recently as 2018, Politico ranked him among 28 people who would shape Europe in the years ahead.

But earlier this week, Dominik Feri was sentenced to three years in prison for rape. A man once feted as the great hope of the Czech Republic, and the youngest member of parliament in the country’s history is now its first politician to be jailed for sexual violence.

We are the investigating journalists who first exposed allegations of sexual violence against Feri three years ago. At the time he was a high profile MP for the centre-right, pro-EU TOP 09 party â€" having won a seat at the age of just 21.

Approximately 15 women came forward and over time, they described horrifying experiences at the hands of the then political superstar. “I have lost so much,” one of the women who spoke out told us.

The courage shown by this person and others, some of whom were young political interns, may have helped to change the way Czech society views sexual violence and its treatment of survivors.

Three allegations against Feri, two for rape and one for attempted rape, led to prosecutions that ended up in court. He was convicted in November 2023 but appealed. This week a Prague court upheld the convictions and sent him to jail.

The media spotlight on the proceedings meant that Czechs for the first time got a detailed appreciation of the plight of survivors of rape as they seek justice. Thanks to the careful work of the prosecution lawyer Adéla Hořejší, the impact of Feri’s behaviour on the survivors received the intense scrutiny it warranted.

The trial itself exacted a price on the survivors that could be described as traumatic. Feri tried to use his celebrity status, influence with the media and powerful social media presence â€" one in 10 Czechs follow him on Instagram â€" to disempower the women. A trained lawyer, his defence used all the stereotypes about rape survivors that exist. He questioned their mental state and their honour, and built his defence on the idea that he was the real victim of a conspiracy by us, the journalists, and by women who were unhappy because they were in love with him but had been rejected. He laughed out loud during some of the victims’ testimonies.

Feri’s combative court room performance appeared to be more about defending his image than defending himself against going to prison. Members of the public were able to witness a celebrity continuing to try to abuse his power and influence to intimidate the victims.

Ironically, Feri was one of the few elected representatives who had vocally and publicly supported the Czech #MeToo campaign. It is his fall from grace that has done more to raise awareness of sexual abuse than any of his actions as a legislator.

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The Feri legal saga and now his jailing may already have delivered an important change in Czech culture: survivors of sexual violence are beginning to be treated with more understanding and less victim-blaming both by the public and in the media. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the majority of Czech politicians.

Feri had resigned as a member of the Czech parliament and from TOP 09 when allegations of sexual assault and improper conduct first surfaced in 2021. While the scandal led to a public debate â€" he denied rape but apologised for “inappropriate” behaviour â€" Feri’s political colleagues lined up to support him.

Party colleague Tomáš Czernin inferred that the timing was politically motivated: “It’s strange that it should come to light like this before the elections,” he said.

“I consider Dominik a friend of mine and I believe he will clear his name,” was the first response of Markéta Pekarová Adamová, the party chair and current speaker of the chamber of deputies, after our investigation was published.

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Feri shared a parliamentary office with Pekarová Adamová, where some of his raucous parties took place, according to independent testimonies we received. She has not responded to our inquiries about how much was known by senior figures in TOP 09. It was at one of these parties that Feri attempted to rape a female intern, a crime he was found guilty of this week.

The Czech Republic has yet to ratify the Council of Europe’s Istanbul convention on preventing and combating violence against women. According to available data, 12,000 rapes occur annually in the Czech Republic, only a fraction of which are reported. Feri’s prosecution has at least helped to put the debate on sexual violence centre-stage.

Police say more rapes are being reported. The numbers rose from 598 in 2017 to 917 in 2023, an increase of more than half.

It has also contributed to a redefinition of rape in Czech law to “no means no”. One of the instigators of this change was Pekarová Adamová.

Adamová’s first statement about the scandal appeared more than 48 hours after Feri’s conviction. In it, she said Feri had given up his party membership and that the conduct for which he was found guilty by the court was “completely unacceptable”.

Regrettably, there was not a word about the survivors of Feri’s sexual violence, or the steps that she as speaker plans to take to ensure greater safety for female interns in parliament.

This silence of the major Czech political parties and most politicians speaks volumes about how much further we still have to go in this country to safeguard women.

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