Author: Vojtěch Berger, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
The Czech Republic could soon become a new base for some independent Slovak media. The government of Robert Fico has abolished public television in its previous form and is also attacking part of the private media. The neighbouring Czech Republic therefore seems a logical safe haven for those Slovak journalists who would face problems at home. Indications that such media shifts will occur are growing.
When the Czech internet television DVTV announced its expansion to Slovakia in the beginning of July, it was not a bolt from the blue. News that an alternative to the recently transformed Slovak public media could be established in the Czech Republic has been circulating for some time among the Slovak expatriate community here.
Prague, after all, has long been a target of persecuted foreign journalists. As a rule, it concerns those coming from the countries of the former Soviet Union. Some of them have so far settled themselves down in the Czech Republic under the banner of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, that is also based in the Czech capital.
It is also Radio Free Europe that is already considering relaunching a Slovak version of its news service, for now in online form, according to the Hungarian investigative journalist Szabolcs Panyi, who cited his Czech and Slovak sources.
Radio Free Europe has already relaunched its online activities in a similar way in Hungary and Bulgaria. It has also opened a new office in Lithuania.
Slovak news made in Czech Republic?
Few people expected that Belarusian or Russian exiled journalists based in Prague would soon be joined by colleagues from Slovakia. But Robert Fico’s government has fulfilled its pre-election rhetoric and has started, among other things, to quickly take steps to shut down the public media.
The relevant law was passed by parliament in June, and since July, instead of the original RTVS, there has been a new TV and radio company STVR, much more firmly tied to state and government power.
Alongside this, however, the Slovak government has also begun to crack down on independent private media. Fico and co. have placed several newsrooms on a “hostile” list, which in practice means that the government does not respond to their journalists and instead speaks exclusively to alternative or outright disinformation sites such as Infovojna, eReport, Hlavné správy and similiar outlets.
Immediately after the elections, Fico also publicly hinted to the most watched commercial television channel, Markíza, that the state would stop advertising on it, thus depriving it of considerable revenue. A dispute then erupted between the newsroom management and some of the staff, the main face of which was the presenter of the political talk show Na Telo, Michal Kovačič.
In May, he warned in a live broadcast of his show against the “orbanisation” of the Slovak media. He was first taken off the screen by the management and then fired at the end of June. In addition, rival private TV Joj has also cancelled its TV discussion programme in recent months.
The Kuciak Centre in Brno
That the attention of independent Slovak journalists is turning to the Czech Republic is also indicated by a look at the commercial register. In April, the Czech branch of the Investigative Centre of Ján Kuciak (ICJK, named after the Slovak journalist murdered in 2018) was registered in the city of Brno.
The chairman of the registered association is, as in the case of the parent Slovak organisation, journalist Lukáš Diko.
“With the aim of preserving the legacy of Ján Kuciak, the ICJK’s membership board decided at the end of 2023 to expand our centre’s activities to the Czech Republic,” Diko told HlídacíPes.org. The centre’s first activity in the Czech Republic is to work with the Czech branch of the International Press Institute (CZ IPI) to create a system to protect journalists. A similar project is already in its second year in Slovakia.
“Thanks to our Safe Journalism initiative, we have information that in the first month after the parliamentary elections the number of attacks against journalists doubled compared to the average of previous months,” Diko commented on the post-election situation of journalists in Slovakia in an interview with Deník Referendum last December. He also mentioned a possible tightening of the Freedom of Information Act as another risk for the work of the media in Slovakia.
The junior coalition partner, Slovak National Party, indeed introduced a controversial amendment to the Freedom of Information Act in Parliament, which would require applicants to pay for “exceptionally extensive searches for information”. However, critics say the law is vaguely worded and could lead to the public not getting the information they are now entitled to.
This also applies to the independent Slovak media, which often rely on requests under the so-called “Info-Law” for their searches. If they find themselves on the government’s blacklist, they will not get a response through standard channels. Journalists in Hungary have been struggling with similar ignorance on the part of the state for many years in relation to the government of Viktor Orbán.
Dissolved at the will of the ministry
But let’s get back to the possible transfer of some Slovak media to the Czech Republic. For those editorial offices that are non-profit organisations in terms of their legal form, such a change makes sense also in a different context.
There is a new law on non-governmental organisations currently pending in the Slovak parliament. Although it has attracted attention mainly because of the possible explicit labelling of those NGOs that have income from abroad, there are more problematic points in the law. For example, the extended power of the Ministry of Interior to control the content of annual reports of non-profit organisations. This could concern some of the media entities too.
“If the ministry finds irregularities, it will ask the association to remove the irregularities, and if the association fails to remove the irregularities, it will be dissolved directly by a decision of the Interior Ministry,” Katka Batková, director of the Via Iuris civic association, described in an interview with HlídacíPes.org.
According to her, the law also lacks adequate deadlines for any possible negotiations with the ministry. Thus, the authority could dissolve the civic association without any other further action. The Slovak Parliament will discuss the law again after the summer holidays. By then it will probably also be clearer what Slovak media have settled down in the Czech “exile” in the meantime.
