Czechia: with 13 cases in 6 months, political attacks on journalists have become hallmarks of Andrej Babis’ premiership

"Seznam Zpravy is the biggest pack of lies in the media, just like Novinky and Pravo. Don't believe a word they say, not even a 'hello.'" On 7 June, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis took to social media to once again baselessly accuse the outlets owned by the Czech company Seznam of lying. Between 9 December 2025, when he took power, and 8 June 2026, Andrej Babis has verbally attacked journalists 6 times, particularly focusing on Seznam, the country's biggest online publisher, which regularly runs investigative stories about his government's misdeeds and his own alleged conflict of interest stemming from a previous career in the EU-funded agrobusiness.

In total, Czech journalists and media have suffered 13 political attacks through public declarations since the new government took power late last year. In contrast with previous years, when RSF condemned pressure on the press coming from the current opposition parties, the attacks in the past six months were perpetrated exclusively by the ruling coalition.

Threats to journalists' safety and media independence

While regularly singling out Seznam Zpravy's editor-in-chief Robert Casensky, Babis has also attacked other leading Czech journalists. On 31 May and 1 June 2026, he baselessly accused members of the Board of the Czech Committee of the International Press Institute, an editors' organisation defending media freedom, of "manipulation", because they co-signed a statement condemning, ironically enough, his very attacks on journalists.

Meanwhile, with four cases in the past six months, Jindrich Rajchl, a member of the Czech Parliament's Chamber of Deputies from the small extreme-right party PRO, is the second-most frequent author of political attacks on journalists, according to RSF's analysis. Journalist from the online outlet PastVina Zuzana Cerna filed a criminal complaint after she was subjected to insults by Jindrich Rajchl and subsequently threatened with death by his supporters on Facebook. Rajchl told RSF that his rhetoric against journalists - despite being demonstrably abusive - was "not attacks, but rather criticism that is completely factual and is always triggered solely by hateful or mendacious articles about me." The MP says he also had to file complaints for death threats received through social networks and triggered by, according to him, unfavourable media coverage. He quoted two news commentaries accusing him of being an ally of the Russian government, denying that they are "factual criticism."

Neither journalists nor politicians should ever be subject to death threats. Sharp and even offensive criticism, however, must be tolerated by politicians so as not to limit the press' freedom of expression, according to a well-established and robust body of case law of the European Court of Human Rights.

The MP has also targeted the public service media, pledging on 15 April to "bring Czech Television to heel" because it is "pure propaganda." The statement, unsupported by evidence, reveals some of the motives behind the ruling coalition's plan to revamp the funding of the public broadcasters, which defies both Czech and European legislation on public media independence. The plan's newest version is scheduled for approval by the Babis government on Monday, 15 June.

Note: Seznam is an RSF donor and partnered with the NGO on Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI).