Janeček's hit

Elections are great. And sometimes this can be said even about the most boring part of this process: the TV campaign ads of different parties, which, in accordance with Czech laws, are entitled to precious airtime on public TV stations.

Last Wednesday the clip of the extremist National Party caused an uproar, when the party attacked Czech Roma in a a campaign ad for the European parliamentary elections. The TV station stopped broadcasting the ad after the public's shocked reaction.

But the circumstances surrounding this ad are somewhat unclear. The TV station at first claimed that it is bound by law to continue broadcasting the clip (which shows photographs of Romani ghettos to the soundtrack of the Finnish group Apocalyptica and calls for a final solution for the "Romani problem"). The station's spokesman at the same time said, however, that the clip might be in breach of Czech laws. Nervously, he promised that the station would file a complaint over suspected racial hatred. Only after the former interior minister, the current prime minister and the minister for human rights stepped in, the station's director, Jiří Janeček, announced he would take the clip off the air. The head of the public broadcasting station also joined in at this point and said he would refuse to air the xenophobic campaigns of tha National Party and of the Workers Party. Both parties were asked to subimit new material …