Prague protest over public media funding may be among the largest in Czechia’s history
Hundreds of thousands of Czechs are expected in Prague on Sunday for a rally that organisers say could rank among the largest in the country’s history, aimed at keeping mandatory licence fees that fund Czech Television and Czech Radio rather than shifting those outlets onto the state budget. Million Moments for Democracy, which is staging the gathering on Letná Plain overlooking the historic centre, forecasts 400,000 to 600,000 people and presents the turnout as a message to Prime Minister Andrej Babiš after weeks of protests nationwide and a strike by public-broadcaster staff.
Opponents argue that scrapping the fees would give ministers more leverage over newsrooms and echo steps taken under current and previous rightwing populist governments in Slovakia, Hungary, Poland and Serbia. The proposed changes would cut state television and radio budgets by about 15 percent and have drawn criticism from the European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute, which have likened the plan to controversial moves by Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, and Hungary’s former premier, Viktor Orbán. TV presenter Daniel Stach, a prominent face of the campaign, said some attendees would also be voicing broader opposition to Babiš’s coalition of populist, hard-right nationalist and Eurosceptic parties.
Babiš, a billionaire who returned to power last year, dismissed the warnings as unfounded. In an op-ed on what he called the “seven lies” of the opposition over fees totalling 205 koruna (£7.03) a month, he wrote that talk of “nationalisation” was a deliberate lie and that the government would not interfere in editorial work. The organisers countered that his cabinet thinks it can ignore experts, silence critics and treat democratic institutions as its property.
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