Author: Vojtěch Berger, HlidaciPes.org
Mayor of the Czech city of Plzeň Roman Zarzycký attacks journalists for articles about the Ukrainian minority. When the regional server Plzeňská drbna described in February the experiences of some Ukrainian children living in the Czech Republic with bullying, Zarzycký called it possible “fake news and damage to the city’s brand”. At the same time the police began investigating the matter but it denied that it was acting at the mayor’s behest. In the end, the police found no wrongdoing.
In January, the phone rang in the sales department of the Plzeň branch of the Drbna.cz network of regional news websites. The call came from mayor’s office. His people did not like the article about Zarzycký’s meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador.
“The text was completely neutral and non-confrontational and described more or less the experience of the city of Plzeň with the Ukrainian minority. Apparently, the mayor did not like this and that is why he and the head of the communication and marketing department contacted our business department with criticism,” says Michael Daněk, editor-in-chief of the news portal Drbna.cz.
The police too quick?
Another criticism from Roman Zarzycký to the same editorial office came via mayor’s Facebook profile about three weeks later.
It was just after the publication of an article about the experiences of some Ukrainian children experiencing bullying in the Czech Republic. Specifically, it was just a few dozen minutes after its publication.
“I reported the information in the article to the Czech Police for investigation. If they are not confirmed, I perceive the dissemination of such news as fake news and damaging the brand of the city of Plzeň and the Czech citizens living there,” the mayor wrote on Facebook, noting that the server Plzeňská Drbna “repeatedly” spread the article about the bullying of Ukrainian children.
In fact, the text was published a few days later on the national website Drbna.cz in addition to the regional website version – a common editorial praxis with other stories too.
The police actually got involved in the matter – and remarkably quickly at first glance – shortly after the mayor’s public criticism of the journalists. The police called the editorial office just a few dozen minutes after the publication of the mayor’s critical Facebook post.
“We are ruling out acting on the mayor’s initiative,” says regional police spokesperson Pavla Burešová. Police reportedly began investigating possible bullying ex officio on 6 February, when the first local version of the article was published.
“The article in question and our reaction to it was one of the topics of a meeting held at our headquarters on 11 February 2025, which was also attended by the mayor,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the police did not find any illegal conduct during their investigation.
“The police only wanted information from the author of the text about one of the respondents who confided in us that her son had been bullied at a school in the Czech Republic. The editors offered the police an audio recording of the entire interview, but the police showed no interest in it. The police primarily wanted the respondent’s contact information, but we did not give it to the police because we do not have it,” says Michael Daněk, editor-in-chief of Drbna.cz.
Real problem, not fake news
Plzeň is an important regional centre with 175 thousand inhabitants. Mayor Zarzycký has been speculated to be one of the possible candidates of the ANO movement for the post of interior minister in the next government. He has long been critical of the topic of the Ukrainian minority and relations with it.
In Plzeň and its surroundings, the above-average number of foreigners, not only from Ukraine, often makes coexistence with the majority not easy. This tension has been exacerbated by some well-publicized cases of violent crime in recent years, and the mayor of Plzeň has long described the situation in the city in his public statements in this vein. After the aforementioned meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador in January, however, Zarzycký spoke in a much more conciliatory tone:
„We agreed that the vast majority of Ukrainian citizens in Plzeň are behaving decently and many of them have already found employment on the labour market. Unfortunately, about five percent of them are damaging their reputation by committing misdemeanors or crimes. The ambassador and I are of the opinion that the law applies to everyone.”
However, the mayor of Plzeň is less conciliatory towards the regional media, which portray coexistence with Ukrainians differently in some respects than he describes it. An example of this is the phone call to the editorial office described above, as well as an offensive post towards journalists on a social network.
In fact, the bullying of Ukrainian children in the Czech Republic is a real problem. This is confirmed by the experience of the non-profit organizations working with youth contacted by Drbna.cz. One specific case of bullying of a Ukrainian pupil from the Plzeň region was also described in February by another Czech newspaper Deník N.
