Press Review
Well the Czech Republic's javelin champion Jan Zelezny breaks a new record today - not for winning his third world title at the Edmonton World Athletics Championships, but for getting himself on the front page of every newspaper in the country. All except for ZEMSKE NOVINY that is, which plumps for a picture of Borussia Dortmund wunderkind Tomas Rosicky helping to send his team to the top of the German Bundesliga.
"Skinheads Begin Targeting Homosexuals" says LIDOVE NOVINY today, adding that the gay community has joined calls from Roma groups and the Jewish community for the police to come down harder on neo-Nazi skinheads. The call comes after Saturday's attack on a gay bar in the town of Liberec, when a group of eight far-right skinheads tried to force their way into the club at 3 o'clock in the morning. Unable to open the door, they started throwing dustbins at the windows. Two skinheads were arrested, charged with hooliganism and released from custody.
"We'll be contacting the Interior Minister in the days to come to warn him about the situation," says Jiri Hromada, from the Czech gay and lesbian organisation SOHO. "We want to know what he's doing about the problem and what he intends to do in the future," says Hromada, adding that before Saturday's attack gays had been subjected to verbal abuse from skinheads, but nothing more. Hromada wants better protection for the gay community from the Czech police.
And staying with the police, and it's their sartorial elegance which captures the imagination of MLADA FRONTA DNES today, part of a full-page spread devoted to the modern Czech police force. The drab green overcoats of the Communist-era police have been replaced with smart dark blue jackets and grey trousers, says the paper, and the change has done wonders to improve their image.
Back in the 1980s Nina Provaan Svobodova was one of the fashion designers who openly criticised the drab uniforms of the Communist police. After the 1989 Velvet - no pun intended - Revolution she was recruited by the police to give them an image makeover. The old uniforms, she says, were all wrong, wrong, wrong: tasteless brown shoes, belts around the waist and coats made from cheap and uncomfortable fabric. And the colours!
"First of all it was disgusting shade of green, and second the army wore green uniforms as well. So I guess the Communist authorities were trying to tell us something there," says the designer. "If you don't feel good in something, or if you know people are laughing at you because of what you're wearing, then that affects your behaviour. In other words, if you look good, you feel good as well. 'Clothes Maketh The Man' applies to the police as well you know!" she tells the paper.
And finally PRAVO has some grim news for nature lovers - hectares of trees are disappearing from the nation's woodland due to illegal logging. From the air many forests are beginning to look like Swiss cheese, says the paper, adding that it's often privately-owned woods which are targeted by illegal loggers because they're not as well protected as state-owned land. Forestry officials in the town of Svitavy say there have been 20 cases of illegal logging in the area this year alone - and they warn of dire environmental consequences if the culprits aren't caught soon.
