Czech Officals Accuse the IMC?

In its effort to criminalise and manipulate the image of the anti-globalisation movement, Czech government officials have now publicly targeted one “foreign company” that strongly suggests Indymedia Prague, for launching a direct campaign to damage the reputation of the Czech Republic and Czech police. Czech Minister of Interior, Stanislav Gross, as well as Czech Prime Minister, Milos Zeman, have each made statements hinting at Indymedia as a cause for public apprehension and mistrust. The October 16th edition of the Czech newspaper, “Pravo”, quotes Gross’ statement on Friday:

. . . The minister repeated that there was an organised professional media campaign from abroad during the meeting of the financiers. “This is not the opinion of the Minister of Interior; I’m just telling you the facts we have learned from intelligence agencies from the Czech Republic and from abroad. There was an information centre of one foreign company, which, since the beginning, prepared media outlets abroad to denounce the Czech Republic and Czech police.”

Even a pretence of democracy must carry freedom of speech and freedom of the press along with it. These freedoms are made into a mockery when they are dependant upon the whims and desires of government officials. The majority of mainstream, corporate media, often serves in fact as a tool to maintain the status quo, rather than as a tool to maintain democracy; it attempts to justify the unjustifiable actions of international governments. For this reason, alternative sources of information must exist. By creating an atmosphere of apprehension, and by assuming destructive intentions among anti-globalisation activists, officials such as Stanislav Gross and Milos Zeman have hindered the so-called atmosphere of discussion and contemplation harped on by Czech President Vaclav Havel. The following, nonetheless, are causes for shock and concern among international citizens:

1. The local authorities in Prague prohibited all protest marches on September 26th, reasoning that marches would obstruct traffic. This argument is only logical if the right to free flow of traffic takes a greater priority than the right to freedom of speech.

2. Czech police have denied almost all, if not all of those detained as a result of demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank, the right to a phone call, a lawyer, food, and sleep. In addition, many of those detained have been beaten and physically harmed as the object of excessive police force.

For these, among other reasons, charges against the Czech government and Czech police, are justified, if not a moral necessity. The accusations made have not intended to defame the Czech Republic or the Czech police, only its injustices.

“Pravo” cites a related statement describing this “international company”, made by Prime Minister Zeman on Sunday:

Prime Minister Milos Zeman stated yesterday on a television debate, that it was an international media institution which organised something similar in Seattle. “It is an institution which has a reasonable amount of money at its disposal. As of yet, we do not know its sources,” said Zeman, and stated that he cannot say its name because it would cause problems in police work. He added that it also probably had the equipment to disturb the police Matra walkie-talkies.

Zeman’s entirely spurious statements imply that he either believes that a couple thousand dollars in the hole is “a reasonable amount of money,” or he is misinformed, or he is blatantly lying. On the day of the September 26th demonstration against the IMF and World Bank in Prague, Czech police apparently had difficulty communicating through their walkie-talkie system, and have since been searching for those with the likely intention and financial means to interfere with its mechanisms. Zeman appears to have falsely targeted the Prague Independent Media Centre, which in fact raised its money almost entirely through internal sources, especially through personal loans from a few benevolent members.

arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)