The Czech cabinet proposed Wednesday a new draft television law to reduce the potential for political bias, and wants MPs to debate it urgently amid a crisis at the state TV station, a spokesman said.
The draft legislation would amend how governors of the state Czech Television (CT) are appointed, allowing various non-political bodies to put forward candidates who would then be voted on by parliament.
"This amendment increases the character of the CT and of Czech Radio (CRo) as a public institution," said government spokesman Libor Roucek, after a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Milos Zeman.
CT journalists have occupied TV headquarters for more than a week demanding the ouster of their new boss Jiri Hodac, who they allege has close ties with the rightwing Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of former prime minister Vaclav Klaus.
Supporters of the protestors called a mass rally for Wednesday afternoon on Prague's central Wenceslas Square.
Under the proposed draft legislation meetings of the governing boards of the state TV and radio services would be public, under the new legislation, the spokesman said.
The current CT board reflects the composition of parliament elected in 1998 ballots, and is therefore dominated Zeman's Social Democrats (CSSD) and the Civic Democrats.
Under the plan, candidates for governors would be proposed by cultural, regional, professional, religious or ecological associations, according to Culture Minister Pavel Dostal.
Meanwhile several hundred CT employees demonstrated outside TV headquarters on Wednesday, in the latest demonstration of opposition to the new director general -- PRAGUE (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
