30 October 2001
PRIME MINISTER THREATENS TO BANKRUPT MAGAZINE
The prime minister of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, has threatened to bankrupt the independent weekly "Respekt" in retaliation for its reporting on government corruption, report the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the International Press Institute (IPI). On 22 October, Zeman announced that he would begin filing a series of lawsuits against the weekly and its editor-in-chief Petro Holub "in order to make sure that "Respekt" finally ceases to exist," according to IPI.
The 22 to 28 October issue of the magazine carries an article criticising Zeman and his cabinet for failing to address corruption. It cites an annual report recently released by Transparency International, which says corruption levels in the Czech Republic are the third highest in the former communist European countries, says IPI. According to Radio Free Europe's "Transitions Online", Holub wrote an editorial stating that Zeman's government had "lost the battle with corruption as data from Transparency International as well as the corrupting behaviour of ministers â beginning with the youngest and ending with the oldest â demonstrates." CPJ says Zeman has stated that his 17 cabinet ministers will file separate lawsuits against Holub. He also said that the reputations of each minister are valued at US$270,000, suggesting that "Respekt" will be sued for a total of US$4.5 million.
According to CPJ's 2000 survey of press freedom in the Czech Republic, Zeman "regularly scolds Czech journalists for their alleged lack of professionalism. 'Journalists claim they are the watchdogs of democracy, but they are no pit bulls of Czech society, rather degenerate mongrels who are only on the lookout for sensations,'" Zeman wrote on October 7 in the Prague daily "Pravo". For more information, see www.cpj.org, www.freemedia.at and www.tol.cz. To view Transparency International's 2001 Global Corruption Report, go to www.transparency.org.
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