Hundreds of thousands of people filled Letná Park in Prague on Sunday in a rally against the Czech government's plan to overhaul how the country's public broadcasters are funded — a protest organisers described as the largest in Czechia since the Velvet Revolution.
Source: Reuters
The rally was organised by the civic group Million Moments for Democracy (Milion Chvilek). Its chairman, Mikuláš Minář, estimated that between 350,000 and 450,000 people had come to Letná, the Czech news agency CTK reported; the BBC reported the organisers' figure as roughly 400,000, and Czech Radio described it as the largest protest in the history of the independent Czech Republic. Prague police spokeswoman Eva Kropáčová told CTK that police do not publish crowd counts.
Source: BBC News
Protesters carrying signs reading “Hands off the media” and “Let media deal with politicians” clogged nearby metro stations and filled the Letná park overlooking the capital, Reuters reported. Organisers said Sunday's turnout already exceeded an anti-government protest of more than 200,000 people in March, and speakers included students, soldiers and former dissidents who signed the Charter 77 initiative.
What the government wants to change
The draft bill backed by the populist government of billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babiš would cancel the 205-crown ($9.26) monthly household broadcasting fee that currently funds Czech Television and Czech Radio, and fund them from the state budget instead. The bill has passed a preliminary vote in parliament and awaits further debate. A 15% financing cut proposed as part of the change would reduce television's nominal budget to the level of 2008 and radio's to the level of 2005, Reuters reported.
The government — Babiš's ANO party backed by the far-right SPD and the eurosceptic Motorists — accuses Czech private and public media of bias, according to Reuters. That is the government's stated case for the change; it has not withdrawn the bill.
Why critics say independence is at stake
Critics say shifting funding to the state budget would undercut the broadcasters' direct relationship with paying viewers and make them susceptible to political pressure, and opposition parties have compared the proposals to changes in Hungary under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who built an array of pro-government media. The European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute have all criticised the government's media plan, AFP reported.
Minář presented a petition calling on the government to withdraw the media financing bill and also to dismiss Tomio Okamura, the SPD leader who serves as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, AFP reported. “We do witness here something extraordinary today,” Minář told the Associated Press. The rally, held two days before the November 17 holiday commemorating the start of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, spilled over into a broader protest against the Babiš government.
Sunday's rally follows weeks of escalation over the same bill, including a one-day strike by Czech Television and Czech Radio staff on November 3. Read: Czech TV and radio workers' one-day strike
An earlier protest over the overhaul filled Prague's Old Town Square on October 25 — Sunday's Letná crowd was many times larger. Read: the October Old Town Square protest
What happens next
The bill still awaits further parliamentary debate, and the government had given no sign by Sunday evening that it would withdraw it. With organisers claiming the biggest crowd since the crowds that helped sweep away Communist rule in 1989, the fight over who pays for — and who can pressure — Czech public media now moves back to parliament.