Bookshops throughout the Czech Republic have been raided by police confiscating copies of a new edition of Mein Kampf that has become one of the best-selling books in the country in a decade.

Michal Zitko, whose Prague-based publishing firm Ottaker II re-released Hitler's manifesto for the first time in the Czech Republic in over half a century has been charged with disseminating Nazi propaganda and faces eight years in prison if he is found guilty at a court hearing next week.

Police have indicated that they might even pull the book from library shelves.

Mr Zitko, 28, argues that he is the victim of confusion and lack of legislation to distinguish between freedom of speech and censorship. "Just like under communism an index of forbidden books is being created," he said.

He has also published in translation the US constitution and declaration of independence and has plans to reintroduce Karl Marx's Das Kapital to Czech bookshops. He declared himself stunned at the Mein Kampf crackdown.

"It was published as part of our Books that Changed the World project and some people have misunderstood my in tentions," he said. Mein Kampf is freely available in most western countries.

The raids were ordered by the government after protests by Jewish and German groups. "Freedom of speech has its limits," said Tomas Kraus or the Czech Federation of Jewish communities. "A jail sentence would allow society to show its defensive reflexes."

But defenders of free speech see the moves as a sign that strict censorship - as experienced during the four decades of communism that ended in 1990 - is on its way back.

When 800 copies of the £4.50 book appeared in March they sold out within days after the cultural minister Pavel Dostal mentioned it on commercial television. Ottaker II increased the print run to 6,000 and until the raids was planning a further 4,000 copies - a huge number for a book in the Czech Republic.

According to the Czech criminal code, anyone found guilty of spreading "national, racial, social or religious hatred or who publicly expresses sympathy for fascism or any other similar movement" can face up to eight years in prison.

"But interpretation of the law is hazy due to years of communist oppression," said a Czech legal expert. "We get stuck in this grey area."