Radio Prague International - latest articles

President Andrzej Duda of Poland, a social conservative allied with the ruling nationalist party, was elected to a second term at the weekend by a slim margin. Throughout the election campaign, Duda attacked the LGBT+ community, raising further concern among some Czech political observers of a turn towards “illiberal democracy” in central Europe, fanned by those seeking to ignite or exploit a culture war.

Caught in the Net, a documentary mapping how predators target teenagers online, has been the most successful film at Czech cinemas this year, with over 400,000 viewers to date. Now its makers have released an uncensored version where viewers get to experience the explicit images to which its protagonists – young adult women playing 12-year-old girls – are exposed. Producer Pavla Klimešová told me why.

Only a handful of Czech tourists returning home from foreign summer holidays have tested positive for the coronavirus, Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch told Czech Radio. His assessment came just a month after open-borders were reinstated with most fellow EU states. However, tougher measures on travel to Serbia and Montenegro were put in place this week.

Petr Jašek has experienced horrors many of us could scarcely imagine. A Christian missionary, he was subjected to escalating humiliation and violence when placed in a cell with prisoners from ISIS in Sudan, where he was charged with espionage for carrying out undercover work with church group Voices of the Martyrs. Jašek has now detailed his chilling experiences in the book Imprisoned with ISIS. When we spoke he outlined his activities prior to his arrest.

The most divisive construction of the year in Prague is surely a Marian column that recently appeared on Old Town Square. It replaced a column in the same spot torn down by a mob shortly after Czechoslovakia received independence. I discussed the response to the new structure with Eugen Kukla, a member of the group that campaigned for its erection for some years.

Certain corners of Prague have stories that are unbeknownst even to Czechs. In the first episode of our series Landmark Prague Stories, we visited the Church of Our Lady Victorious in the Lesser Quarter. Famous for its statue of the Infant Jesus, the church has experienced first-hand the political and social upheavals of centuries past.

The combination of a long-term rise in numbers of game in the Czech countryside, combined with a decrease in demand from restaurants and meat processers, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic, has led to worries that hunted game will go to waste. As a result, the Bohemian-Moravian Hunters Union has created a new direct-to-consumer website, where the public can order freshly hunted game.

Visitors flying to or from Prague airport can now admire a huge colourful mural, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The large-format wall painting was created by the well-known Czech graffiti artist Michal Škapa as part of a project called ArtWall.

Aileen Rodriguez is from Panama but now lives in the Czech Republic. Working on the business side of the health care technology sector, she is responsible for the wider Central and Eastern European region and has seen her workload pile up significantly over the past months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To find out more about how she views life in the Czech Republic and the country’s coronavirus response, I invited her to our studio and began by asking how she ended up in Prague.

Instead of the Czech Republic’s biggest music festival, Colours of Ostrava, which is cancelled because of Covid-19, its operators are running a four-day “Nonfestival” at the same post-industrial site next week. Wednesday and Friday will deliver shows, Saturday the Melting Pot discussion forum and Thursday a free “fan day”. I asked Colours spokesman Jiří Sedlák what visitors could look forward to.