Prague, Nov 23 (CTK) – Not one Russian article, but the demanding of gratitude for the occupation from the former Soviet satellite states is a real problem in the current scandal during Czech President Milos Zeman’s ongoing visit to Moscow, Zbynek Petracek writes in Lidove noviny (LN) today.
Czech top officials, including Zeman and Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek, rightfully rejected the article defending the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia published on the Russian army TV Zvezda’s web.
However, Petracek writes, Zeman’s view that the text was written by “a mad journalist” and cannot harm cooperation between the Czech Republic and Russia is only partially true.
The military TV’s web is no anarchist, provocative and crazy media outlet, but actually an official, in other words, government voice, so what is published there must be taken seriously, Petracek points out.
The message of the article is that the states that used to be under the Soviet influence should not only be accommodating towards Russia, but grateful to it for the liberation from Nazism as well as “the protection from the aggression of the West.” This is the heart of the matter, Petracek writes.
Consequently, Czech officials should not protest against an act of a madman, but against “a shameless provocation,” Petracek concludes.
The Czech judiciary is a completely unpredictable system that makes “a ghostly impression” on those who are subject to it, Martin Zverina writes elsewhere in daily Lidove noviny (LN) today, commenting on the latest verdict in “the Nagyova case.”
Jana Necasova (previously Nagyova), wife of ex-PM Petr Necas and the former head of his office, was found guilty on Wednesday, along with three intelligence officers in the case of abuse of the military intelligence service, though she was previously acquitted of charges several times. Then the appeals court ordered to replace the judge for disrespecting its legal opinion and the new one gave her a suspended sentence.
Zverina writes that her case is not rare. It happens quite often that the superior or appeals courts not only correct the lower level courts verdicts but completely tear them to pieces.
It seems that the result to a high extent depends on which judge you receive. Those who have enough money and will to continue court proceedings for long have an advantage since they can hope that their judge will be changed with time. But the poor and less resolute do not have a chance in such a system, Zverina points out.
ANO movement leader Andrej Babis, possible next prime minister, should let the Chamber of Deputies release him for prosecution on suspicion of an EU subsidy fraud, Petr Kolar writes in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) today.
He says it has become more and more apparent that Babis does not want to allow this now and that his ANO MPs might directly vote against the release of him and ANO deputy Jaroslav Faltynek and not abstain from the vote as they did the first time.
Moreover, the Communists (KSCM) and the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party have not put it clear whether they would agree with Babis’s prosecution. The three parties together would have a majority in the lower house and could prevent Babis’s prosecution smoothly, Kolar says.
However, it would be a gross political mistake, he adds.
In such a case, Babis would really have only the Communists (KSCM) and Tomio Okamura’s SPD left for a possible government, which would be no great deal for the whole country, not just for him. At the same time, many voters of ANO might consider this a confession of his guilt, Kolar writes in MfD.
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