{"id":921,"date":"2018-04-07T22:52:48","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T20:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/czechpoints.com\/?p=921"},"modified":"2019-07-11T16:37:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T14:37:19","slug":"babis-strong-arms-journalists-investigating-subsidy-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/babis-strong-arms-journalists-investigating-subsidy-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Babis Strong Arms Journalists Investigating Subsidy Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following article originally appeared on CPJ<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Czech authorities to ensure that journalists can work without interference. Three Czech investigative journalists issued a joint\u00a0statement\u00a0<\/a>on\u00a0April 3<\/a>\u00a0that said police tried to intimidate them by repeatedly bringing them in for questioning over their reporting on Prime Minister Andrej Babi\u0161.<\/p>\n

In their statement, Jaroslav Kmenta from the privately owned monthly magazine\u00a0Report\u00e9r,<\/i>\u00a0Janek Kroupa, from Czech public radio station \u010cesk\u00fd rozhlas, and Sabina Slonkov\u00e1 from the privately owned news website\u00a0Neovlivn\u00ed<\/i>\u00a0said that the police and its internal investigation unit, the General Inspection of Security Corps, summoned the journalists for questioning over their reporting on allegations of wrongdoing by the prime minister and the police investigation into his case.<\/p>\n

The journalists said they were questioned separately on several occasions in recent months about their sources and leaked information. The journalists said they refused to reveal their sources.<\/p>\n

Police denied\u00a0via Twitter<\/a>\u00a0that they tried to intimidate the journalists and said officers were following criminal proceedings supervised by the state attorney’s office.<\/p>\n

“Journalists must be able to do their jobs, including the protection of their sources, without any interference,” said CPJ European Union Representative Tom Gibson. “Czech authorities must not harass members of the media.”<\/p>\n

The journalists were questioned about their reports on a case involving Babi\u0161, a former businessman who led the ANO party to victory in last October’s elections. Police allege that Babi\u0161\u00a0illegally obtained a subsidy of \u20ac2 million (US$2.5 million in today’s rates) a decade ago, Reuters\u00a0reported<\/a>. Babi\u0161\u00a0denies any wrongdoing and has refused to step aside as prime minister, according to reports.<\/p>\n

In their\u00a0statement, the Czech journalists said, “We are convinced that these investigations are to confuse and intimidate us and our sources and discourage us from further work.”<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article originally appeared on CPJ The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Czech authorities to ensure that journalists can work without interference. Three Czech investigative journalists issued a joint\u00a0statement\u00a0on\u00a0April 3\u00a0that said police tried to intimidate them by repeatedly bringing them in for questioning over their reporting on Prime Minister Andrej Babi\u0161. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":922,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[68,95,297,261,296],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBabis Strong Arms Journalists Investigating Subsidy Fraud - 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\/babis-strong-arms-journalists-investigating-subsidy-fraud\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Babis Strong Arms Journalists Investigating Subsidy Fraud - Czech Points\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following article originally appeared on CPJ The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Czech authorities to ensure that journalists can work without interference. Three Czech investigative journalists issued a joint\u00a0statement\u00a0on\u00a0April 3\u00a0that said police tried to intimidate them by repeatedly bringing them in for questioning over their reporting on Prime Minister Andrej Babi\u0161. In […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/czechpoints.com\/babis-strong-arms-journalists-investigating-subsidy-fraud\/\" \/>\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=\"2018-04-07T20:52:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-07-11T14:37:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/czechpoints.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/andrej-babis-e1523134298419.jpg?fit=269%2C335&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"269\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"335\" \/>\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=\"Zora \u0160m\u00eddov\u00e1\" \/>\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":"Babis Strong Arms Journalists Investigating Subsidy Fraud - 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\/babis-strong-arms-journalists-investigating-subsidy-fraud\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Babis Strong Arms Journalists Investigating Subsidy Fraud - Czech Points","og_description":"The following article originally appeared on CPJ The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Czech authorities to ensure that journalists can work without interference. Three Czech investigative journalists issued a joint\u00a0statement\u00a0on\u00a0April 3\u00a0that said police tried to intimidate them by repeatedly bringing them in for questioning over their reporting on Prime Minister Andrej Babi\u0161. 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