A public prosecutor here has overruled a decision by a police official to squelch an investigation of the Prague weekly Politika for publishing anti-Semitic stories.
The police were ordered to reopen their inquiry into the magazine, which has been the focus of mounting criticism over the past year for a crude anti- Semitic bias. It is sold openly on newsstands and has even gained in circulation since the publicity given it by the police investigation.
The decision of the district public prosecutor came after it was found that police had accepted the pro-Politika views of an archivist at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, while turning down opposing views by five academy experts who found Politika pursued an anti-Semitic view in contravention of the law.
Filip Sedivy, vice chairman of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly, said last week that legislation might be needed to bolster legal action against those publications like Politika which violated individual civil rights.
But Sedivy said such action would be complicated by the breakup of the country into independent Czech and Slovak states on Jan. 1.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
