Prague, March 15 (CTK) – Students from about 300 secondary schools and universities joined an half-hour token strike in defence of social and constitutional values at noon on Thursday, staging rallies in squares and outside school buildings in Prague and other towns across the Czech Republic.
Thousands of students joined the event. In speeches, on banners and on the social networks they criticised the approach to the constitution and the media by top politicians, mainly Andrej Babis, the head of the government ruling in resignation, and President Milos Zeman.
The Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts (DAMU) initiated the strike by its #VyjdiVen (Go out) appeal, which 320 schools followed.
The main organiser, Lubos Louzensky, said the strike should not challenge the election results but show that students are not indifferent to the recent developments in the Czech Republic.
The protesters demanded, among others, that Zeman observe the constitutional habits and name a PM-designate who enjoys lawmakers’ support and does not face criminal prosecution, unlike Babis, who is suspected of an EU subsidy fraud.
The students also called on Babis’s government not to take crucial or personnel steps and not to create new constitutional procedures.
The demonstrators often voiced support for independent media.
About a hundred of protesters gathered outside the DAMU building in Prague at noon, carrying Czech flags and portraits of former anti-communist leader and the first post-communist president Vaclav Havel.
Another group of protesters gathered in Prague’s central Wenceslas Square, including employees from nearby offices. They clinked their keys, cited statements of first Czechoslovak President Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and chanted “We give a damn!” in reaction to the current political situation.
Hundreds-strong crowds also gathered at other places in Prague such as outside the National Technical Library, which is situated near a large university complex, and Albertov, a site near Charles University’s faculties that is historically linked with student protests. The protesters chanted slogans in support of the truth, democracy and public Czech Television, which Zeman’s supporters challenged of late.
The participants queued for signing a petition which the organisers want to submit to the Senate, the upper house parliament, on Monday, Louzensky said.
Simultaneously, hundreds of students joined similar rallies in the centre or outside school buildings in Brno, Plzen, Hradec Kralove, Olomouc, Ceske Budejovice, Zlin, Ostrava and Usti nad Labem.
