Thousands of protesters rallied in Prague in support of the country's public media and against the move by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš' radical populist cabinet to curtail financing for Czech Television (CT) and Czech Radio (CRo).
The rally held under the slogan “Hands Off Media” organised by the Million Moments for Democracy platform, which was behind the 2018-2019 mass protests against the previous cabinet led by Babiš, also criticised Minister of Culture Oto Klempíř of the anti-green and Eurosceptic Motorists for Themselves party for staff and culture funding changes at the ministry.
“Instead of protecting Czech culture, he has been repeatedly harming it,” the platform’s head Mikuláš Minář said at the Old Town Square in the historic centre of Prague, and called for another rally on May 25 when the cabinet opens its session.
Earlier this year, the ruling coalition consisting of Babiš' Ano, the far right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and Motorists parties agreed to scrap the funding of public media through concession fees, renewing fears it may try to suffocate the independence of public media.
Babiš and SPD leader and parliamentary chairman Tomio Okamura back the move, expecting it to come into effect by January 1, 2027 and plan to have public media funded directly from the state budget by then.
Even the partial scrapping of the concession fees proposed by the ruling coalition this spring would amount to one third of CT’s and CRo’s income with CT losing more than CZK2bn (€81mn) and CRo losing CZK800mn, Czech Press Agency reported earlier, referring to information from the public broadcasters which warned this would impact the financial stability of the media.
The move sparked country-wide protest, including the mass rally on March 21 when around 200,000-250,000 Czechs rallied at the Letná plateau in Prague against the policies of the Babiš-led cabinet and his Ano party, which they fear threaten democratic standards in the country, including the government-backed NGO draft bill, criticised as inspired by a similar Russian bill targeting civic society.
As IntelliNews reported last month, CRo and CT labour unions declared a strike emergency on April 22 in response to the cabinet proposals.
“The government proposal to change the law on CT and CRo and particularly the parliamentary proposal to scrap concession fees for selected groups will lead already this year to budget shakeup of both institutions and mass layoffs,” Zuzana Bančanská stated at a press conference held in front of CT’s headquarters at Kavčí hory on April 22.
The Ministry of Culture and the cabinet members deny the public media, which are some of the most respected ones in the wider region, would be targeted, but the ruling coalition parties have regularly attacked the public media and accused them of biased reporting.
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