On Thursday, the Czech mainstream media scene exploded with news of the detention of a Chinese journalist. However, it brought more question marks than answers. The detainee is a journalist who had been working in the Czech Republic for five years, had written not only about the Czech Republic but also about all the Visegrad Four countries, and had official accreditation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which the Czech state had repeatedly granted him for three consecutive years, wrote editor Helena Kočová.
The very publication of the case raised many eyebrows. Deník N, Seznam Zprávy, Czech Radio and other „serious“ titles were the first to report it. However, it was here that the quality of some of the Czech mainstream journalism became apparent: something like the presumption of innocence apparently meant nothing to them in this case.
Cataloguing the Czech mainstream
While in other, even violent, cases the media use words like „man suspected of murder“, no one hesitated for a moment to use the labels „agent“ or „spy“ for the detained journalist. All this despite the fact that the investigation is still ongoing and there is no judicial decision.
If the detainee was indeed a „secret agent“ or „spy“, as he was unembarrassedly described by some in the media, he would have to be charged under Section 316 of the Criminal Code - espionage. This section deals with classic espionage and is one of the most serious security offences. It is based on working with classified information and presupposes that the perpetrator obtains or transmits such information with the intention of harming the Czech Republic.
However, none of this has been made official in this case.
The Czech state, on the other hand, qualifies the case under a relatively new provision of § 318a of the Criminal Code - unauthorized activity for foreign power. This section refers to persons who »with the intention of threatening or damaging the constitutional establishment, sovereignty, territorial integrity, defence or security of the Czech Republic, carry out activities on its territory for a foreign power«.
The difference is crucial: Section 318a does not require working with classified information. It does not rest on a showing of espionage, but on an interpretation of intent and the nature of the activity. That is why, when it was passed, the section was already criticized by a segment of the professional community as being too broad and open to interpretation, with the risk that its interpretation could affect perfectly legitimate and lawful professional activities, including journalistic work based solely on publicly available sources.
Journalistic work vs. „working for a foreign power“
And here we come to the heart of the problem. A journalist was arrested for doing what journalists normally do: working with publicly available information, conducting interviews, analysing political and social events. Indeed, given his lack of Czech language skills, his work was often more complicated than that of domestic journalists - and all the more so when it relied on official, publicly available sources. Yes, he was loyal to his country - just as Czech journalists are loyal to the Czech Republic, French journalists to France, or American journalists to the United States. Loyalty to one's own country is not a crime.
And to whom are the Czech media loyal?
There is also an uncomfortable but legitimate question: who are the loyalties of the media that have framed the case as a spy affair from day one?
Deník N, Seznam Zprávy, as well as the public radio station Czech Radio, which is financed by licence fees, came up with the „revelation“ at a time when the new Czech government led by the coalition of ANO, SPD and Motorists is making no secret of its efforts to normalise relations with China and declaring its interest in pragmatic bilateral cooperation.
Representatives of the Synopsis Project, an initiative funded by the Foundation for Independent Journalism, People in Need, and the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), among others, are repeatedly quoted as expert commentators.The organization, which presents itself as independent, was in fact founded as a project of the US government and has long been active in dozens of countries around the world with the aim of influencing the media and political environment in accordance with US interests.
BIS: Be obedient and we'll leave you alone...
It is also necessary to look back at who started this case - the case was carried out in cooperation between the Security Information Service (BIS), led by Michal Koudelka, and the Czech police - the National Headquarters against Terrorism, Extremism and Cybercrime. The raid on the journalist was itself an explicit action - the stopping of the vehicle, the gunfire under the car, the police officers in full armour pulling the suspect out of the car as a dangerous terrorist - all of this, of course, was not to be missed in the TV news as part of the media show. Why Koudelka triggered the action now, and what he was after, I leave to others to judge...
Our whole counterintelligence agency is such a strange body. On its website, the BIS reassures citizens by saying: »Unless you're a terrorist or a spy, you do not threaten the democratic system, security and economic interests of the state, you do not disclose classified information, you are not a member of organized crime, nor are you in contact with people who do not have a clear conscience in the aforementioned areas, you need not worry about our interest in your person in the slightest.«
This phrase is supposed to be „reassuring“. But just replace one word - „democratic“ - with „monarchist“ or „socialist“ and we find ourselves in a vocabulary that Europe knows very well from the past.
Such formulations are typical of systems that are least certain of their legitimacy. And this is where the uncomfortable question arises: where does the protection of democracy end and where does its linguistic and ideological emptying begin? And who determines what exactly constitutes a „threat to the democratic system“ - especially if the work of an accredited journalist can fit into this category?
What does the world say?
Many journalists, especially those with a social conscience, repeatedly write about journalists who have paid the ultimate price for their work. About reporters killed in the line of duty, about those who ended up in prison just because they reported on events that someone did not want to see published or because of their opposing political views. According to international organisations, hundreds of journalists are imprisoned every year, and dozens of them pay with their lives for their work. Not because they are terrorists. But because they wrote, questioned and reported.
These cases are regularly described as a violation of press freedom, an abuse of the security forces and an erosion of democracy. The Czech Republic has long joined these critics. It is all the more worrying when it itself starts using the same language, the same procedures and the same logic.
The detention of an accredited foreign journalist, media labeling before the trial, vague security paragraphs, and language like „if you are not threatening the system, you don't have to worry“ - these are exactly the signs we have seen elsewhere and condemned with a sense of moral superiority.
The issue is not whether the state has the right to protect its security. It is about how it does it - and who it is willing to sacrifice in the process. Freedom of the press is not measured by how the state treats journalists who are close to it in opinion or politically convenient. It is measured by how it treats those who are foreign, inconvenient and easy to victimise.
If the Czech Republic starts to behave in such a way that the work of a journalist can be labelled a security threat without clear evidence, then it is getting dangerously close to countries from which it has so far tried to keep its distance. The question then is no longer whether the detained journalist was guilty, but where we have actually moved - and whether we are even noticing.
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