News

The One World festival of human rights documentaries concluded in Prague’s Světozor cinema on Thursday with awards presented to the winning films. The Best Film Award will go to the British-Cambodian documentary Enemies of the People, which follows the journalist Thet Sambath as he tracks down former members of the Khmer Rouge in his native Cambodia. The Polish film Chemo about patients at a Warsaw oncology clinic will receive the Best Director Award. The Rudolf Vrba Award for the best film in the Right to Know category and the Václav Havel Special Award for films that uniquely contribute to the defence of human rights will both go to the Indian documentary The Sun behind the Clouds about the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

The One World festival was held in Prague between March 10 and 18. More than 32,000 people saw at least one of over 100 films screened at the festival, which will now move to some 30 cities and towns around the Czech Republic.

Cardinal Miroslav Vlk has addressed the recent wave of accusations of child abuse against the Catholic Church, saying that it is necessary to reanalyse the way priests are trained in sexual morality. Writing on his website, the head of the Czech Catholic Church called the alleged acts of abuse an offence to God and primarily a gross violation of the human dignity of helpless persons. He also concurred with the Vatican that the institution of celibacy is not to blame for the scandal. Czech priests have not been implicated in the new scandals, in which hundreds of allegations of child abuse have been raised against Catholic priests in six other European states. Cardinal Vlk wrote that in the 20 years of his leadership of the Diocese of Prague he has never received any word of a case of child abuse by a Church official.

Detectives from the organised crime department of the Czech Police have uncovered what is likely one of the most prolific forgery gangs in Europe. A 61-year-old Czech woman and an Albanian have already been charged; another two foreigners from Britain and Romania will be charged in the coming days. The group, which may consist of more members, has allegedly been responsible for the forgery of at least several hundred documents. At least one of the members was bringing passports to Germany for Iranians who wanted to travel to Canada. Other documents forged by the group have been found in the UK and in Spain. Police began working on the case in May of last year and have involved other detectives from across Europe to find the suspects. If convicted they face up to ten years in prison.

President Václav Klaus has sharply criticised the high number of college institutions in the Czech Republic, calling it the greatest attack on the quality of higher learning since the post-war communist purges. Speaking at the 100th anniversary of the Žofin Forum, Mr Klaus said that a high number of college students in the Czech Republic did not mean higher quality education. Experts have also pointed out a problem of so-called “flying professors”, who teach at multiple schools. This problem has been addressed by an amendment to the college education act passed by parliament last week, which creates a register of which professors teach where. There are currently 73 college institutions in the Czech Republic, of which 45 are private, 26 are public and two are state-run.