The bizarre nature of Czech politics have been laid bare by a court ruling which gives the right of descendents of the journalist Ferdinand Peroutka to send debt collectors after the country’s president, Miloš Zeman. Zeman refused to respect a court decision demanding he apologize for comments in which he claimed the journalist had once written an article entitled “Hitler is a gentleman”. Despite a court case in which it was established that Perout never wrote the article, and strong evidence that Zeman had referenced an article written by another writer, the president has refused to accept the court’s finding and has not apologized as demanded by the court. The fine, CZK 100,000, will be collected by the journalist’s descendents.
