News

Police say a Czech gun maker did not break the law by using a genuine image of an Islamic State terrorist standing behind a kneeling prisoner in an orange jump suit in an advertisment. The picture was accompanied by the slogan “With empty hands you can soon be on your knees” and a tag-line that the company Zelený sport had the broadest selection of sub-machine guns in “Christian Europe”. Police had been investigating whether the firm had broken the law with the controversial ad but concluded it had not, Czech Radio reported.

A group that last year illegally squatted a former medical clinic in Prague’s Žižkov district have been given permission to use the building free of charge. The agency representing the state in property matters is set to hand over the keys to the Klinika civic association after a tender process in which it became the last remaining applicant. The erstwhile squatters plan to open a cheap restaurant and bicycle repair shop on the premises.

The discrepancy in pensions between Czech men and women has not changed in the last one or two decades, according to the Social Security Office. Women receive pensions that are on average twenty percent lower than men. While men receive on average twelve thousand crowns a month, women get around ten thousand. This stems from the discrepancy in pay during their work years. An expert commission has advised the government to consider calculating the pensions of married couples from their joint earnings.

Czechs are high on the list of Europeans who are wary of foreign migrants, according to the results of a Eurobarometre poll. On average 58 percent of Europeans are against opening their doors to more foreign migrants with Latvia, Greece, Italy and Cyprus topping the list of anti-immigration countries. In the Czech Republic 75 percent of respondents expressed themselves against a migrant friendly policy and moreover strongly opposed a joint policy on migrants within the EU. Among the most tolerant countries in this respect is Sweden where only 25 percent of respondents would close the country’s doors to migrants.