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In tennis, Lucie Šafářová beat German Sabine Lisicki 6:3, 7:7 to reach the fourth round of the Paris Open at Roland Garros. The Czech 13th seed will now face the winner of the match between Australian Samantha Stosur and Russia’s Maria Sharapova. In the men’s singles, Lukáš Rosol lost to Teymuraz Gabashvili in straight sets: 4:6, 4:6, 4:6 in the third round.

Outgoing minister of education Marcel Chládek described in a press conference that his dismissal was an unprecedented step. He said that he was a victim of a campaign by the fellow coalition party, ANO, led by billionaire businessman Andrej Babiš, which was connected with his moves to win a bigger budget for the education ministry. Chládek warned that his example could be a dangerous precedent for fellow ministers or officials whose policies clashed with the interests of Andrej Babiš or his agro-chemical group Agrofert. He added that the comments about his alleged bullying of ministry officials were lies put together by a Babiš owned newspaper and drawn from comments of workers who had already quit a year ago. He said it was important for his successor to continue the fight for more funds for education, adding that without these the Czech Republic could not hope to compete on a global stage.

A court has cleared the former head of office of ex-prime minister Petr Nečas of abusing her public position by ordering the army’s intelligence service to spy and keep track of Radka Nečasová, the prime minister’s then wife. Jana Nečasová, formerly Nagyová, was romantically linked to the prime minister and later became his wife. Charges against three co-defendants from the military espionage service were dismissed. The case brought down the centre-right government of Petr Nečas when it exploded in June 2013. The state prosecutor, who demanded a three-and-a-half jail sentence for Nečasová and similar penalties for the other defendants, said an appeal would be lodged against the verdict. Nečasová afterwards said the charges had been totally fabricated with the aim of discrediting her and Petr Nečas.

Czech schools should not insist on any general limitation of the use of religious symbols by their students in their school rules, the Education Ministry said in a manual for school principals released yesterday. They can only do so for the sake of security and health protection in a specific situation, the manual says. Headscarves have become an issue in the Czech Republic after a medical school in Prague banned two students from wearing them more than a year ago. Ombudsman Anna Šabatová then demanded that the school rules be changed, arguing that the school indirectly discriminated against the girls.