Foes Turn Up Heat on Czech TV Director

The beleaguered director of Czech state television faced growing pressure to quit over alleged political bias Thursday as politicians decided to speed up a legal amendment that could end his rule within weeks.

The director, Jiri Hodac, was taken to a hospital after what appeared to be a breakdown from exhaustion. Doctors said later that his condition had stabilized.

Hodac’s ailment is the latest twist in a bitter 2-week-old conflict over independent reporting at state-run Czech Television.

On Dec. 20, the Czech TV council appointed Hodac as Czech Television director, triggering outrage among the channel’s news staff, who claim that the appointment was politically biased because Hodac is too close to former Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus.

Dissident journalists refused to work with Hodac, and he responded by firing the rest of management as well as some prominent journalists. The rebellious news staff refused to give in; they have since holed up in the newsroom and sought to air their own news programming.

About 1,700 Czech Television staffers are now backing the rebellion, and about 130,000 other people have signed a petition demanding Hodac’s dismissal.

Parliamentary elections are due in 2002, and many backers of the striking journalists fear that Klaus’ Civic Democratic Party wants to ensure more favorable coverage by public television.

The uproar increased Thursday when Culture Minister Pavel Dostal threatened to file a complaint with police for being blacked out by Hodac during Wednesday’s appearance on a show aired by staff rebelling against the chief.

The crisis has prompted the ruling Social Democrats to speed up a legal amendment that would dismiss the council that appointed Hodac and replace it with a panel elected from candidates proposed by professional and civic groups, not by politicians.

Klaus, who is speaker of the lower house of Parliament, on Thursday accepted a government request to put the amendment on a fast-track approval process.