Associations call on president not to sign penal code amendment into law

The Czech Publishers Association and the World Association of Newspapers have appealed to Czech President Václav Klaus not to sign a new amendment to the country’s criminal code. The amendment, approved recently by the lower house, includes a ban on the publishing or broadcasting of police wiretap material. In a letter to the president, the journalists’ and publishers’ organisations write that it is not the state but the media who should make decisions on when to go public with information. They also stressed that the five year sentence for violating the ban was “unacceptable”. Until now, the Czech media relied regularly on police transcripts to point to connections, for example, in organised crime.