Government earmarks 50 million for blocking cell phone calls in prisons

The government has earmarked 50 million crowns for blocking mobile phone communications in some tight security prisons in order to reduce the risk of planned escapes by inmates and to prevent them from controlling their illegal activities using mobile phones. The two-year project will be launched at the beginning of 2007. However, T-Mobile, one of the three operators active in the Czech Republic, argues that blocking mobile phone communications is against Czech law. In 2005, the prison authority seized 436 telephones smuggled into prisons across the country.