{"id":1286,"date":"2019-06-04T15:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T13:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/czechpoints.com\/?p=1286"},"modified":"2019-07-11T16:31:28","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T14:31:28","slug":"massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>An estimated 120,000 protestors gathered in the Czech capital, Prague, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister\u00a0Andrej Babis<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>amid allegations that he\u00a0allegedly misused EU subsidies worth millions of euros and that he and his\u00a0new justice minister were compromised by conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The massive protest, which was organized\u00a0by a Czech-based Facebook initiative known as\u00a0A Million Moments For Democracy, filled Prague\u2019s historical Wenceslas Square and was the largest of its kind since the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ushered in the fall of Communism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The organisers of the demonstration have been hosting anti-Babi\u0161 protests every week since the end of April.&nbsp;During the 4 June gathering, the participants&nbsp;carried signs with photos of Babi\u0161 and emblazoned with the word \u201cresign\u201d and \u201cprime minister or crime minister?\u201d&nbsp;across his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Babi\u0161 has vehemently denied all of the accusations he\u2019s facing and publicly denounced them as a political smear campaign aimed at bringing down his administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In April, police recommended that Babi\u0161 be charged with EU subsidy fraud. The Czech Republic\u2019s justice minister,\u00a0Jan Knezinek, resigned that same month and was replaced with\u00a0Marie Benesova. Protestors are concerned Benesova, however, has come under intense criticism from opposition activists who believe she is actively working to hinder the investigation into Babi\u0161\u2019 activities, which include his\u00a0involvement in an industrial Agrofert conglomerate that he transferred over to two EU subsidized trust funds before he came to power in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A European Commission report on the scandal, leaked on 31 May, claimed Babi\u0161 still has \u201cdecisive influence\u201d over the conglomerate and has illegally and unfairly continued to benefit from Agrofert\u2019s business and use of subsidies since he became the Czech prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBabi\u0161 is the beneficial owner of the Agrofert group companies and, since February 2017, of the two trust funds&nbsp;that he fully controls, and therefore has a direct economic interest in the success of the Agrofert group,\u201d the Commission\u2019s report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Million Moments for Democracy plans to hold\u00a0another protest on 11 June 2019\u00a0in Brno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Babis has courted controversy for much of his public life. In January 2018, a court in the Slovak capital Bratislava ruled that\u00a0Babis collaborated with the StB,\u00a0Communist-era Czechoslovakia\u2019s feared secret police, using the\u00a0code name\u00a0Bure\u0161. As an StB agent, he was reportedly a member of one of the intelligence service units that was most closely linked to the Soviet KGB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opposition activists and\u00a0foreign journalists\u00a0who specialize in the former Eastern Bloc have pointed to his alleged support for Russia\u2019s\u00a02014 invasion and illegal annexation of Ukraine\u2019s Black Sea region Crimea, and his opposition to international sanctions against\u00a0Moscow, as proof that he remains closely tied to the Kremlin\u2019s clandestine services and acts as a staunchly pro-Russian politician deeply embedded within the European Union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An estimated 120,000 protestors gathered in the Czech capital, Prague, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister\u00a0Andrej Babis\u00a0amid allegations that he\u00a0allegedly misused EU subsidies worth millions of euros and that he and his\u00a0new justice minister were compromised by conflicts of interest. The massive protest, which was organized\u00a0by a Czech-based Facebook initiative known as\u00a0A Million Moments [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.4.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague - Czech Points<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague - Czech Points\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An estimated 120,000 protestors gathered in the Czech capital, Prague, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister\u00a0Andrej Babis\u00a0amid allegations that he\u00a0allegedly misused EU subsidies worth millions of euros and that he and his\u00a0new justice minister were compromised by conflicts of interest. The massive protest, which was organized\u00a0by a Czech-based Facebook initiative known as\u00a0A Million Moments [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Czech Points\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/czechpoints\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-04T13:00:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-07-11T14:31:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/czechpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/babis-andrej.jpeg?fit=275%2C183&#038;ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"275\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"183\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@czech_points\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@czech_points\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Pavel Burian\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague - Czech Points","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague - Czech Points","og_description":"An estimated 120,000 protestors gathered in the Czech capital, Prague, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister\u00a0Andrej Babis\u00a0amid allegations that he\u00a0allegedly misused EU subsidies worth millions of euros and that he and his\u00a0new justice minister were compromised by conflicts of interest. The massive protest, which was organized\u00a0by a Czech-based Facebook initiative known as\u00a0A Million Moments [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/","og_site_name":"Czech Points","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/czechpoints","article_published_time":"2019-06-04T13:00:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-07-11T14:31:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":275,"height":183,"url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/czechpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/babis-andrej.jpeg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@czech_points","twitter_site":"@czech_points","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Pavel Burian","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/","name":"Czech Points","description":"Czech Republic News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/czechpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/babis-andrej.jpeg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/czechpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/babis-andrej.jpeg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","width":275,"height":183,"caption":"andrej babis"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/","name":"Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague - Czech Points","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2019-06-04T13:00:36+00:00","dateModified":"2019-07-11T14:31:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/#\/schema\/person\/0d93b982f35eacd83772a1b5c4334a6f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/massive-protests-against-babis-continue-in-prague\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Massive protests against Babis continue in Prague"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/#\/schema\/person\/0d93b982f35eacd83772a1b5c4334a6f","name":"Pavel Burian","url":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/author\/pavelb\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/czechpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/babis-andrej.jpeg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1287,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1286\/revisions\/1287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}