FROM RFE/RL: IMMORALITY AS MATTER OF POLICY Hrant Darbinian (Prague, July 27, 2010) – Czech Foreign Minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, shall request his U.S. counterpart, Hillary Clinton, to abandon nationally discriminative labor policies of American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in the Czech Republic. RFE/RL treatment of its foreign employees in Prague and resulting ongoing court cases damage international reputation of the Czech Republic and the United States, notes the article RFE – Task for Schwarzenberg published by the oldest Czech newspaper Lidové noviny. Financed by American Congress via federal agency Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was transferred from Munich to Prague in 1995. It employs hundreds foreign nationals from former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., broadcasting to 21 countries in 28 languages. Ex officio, as the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton serves both on BBG and RFE/RL Board of Directors. "It is Hillary Clinton," writes Lidové noviny ,"whom the new Czech foreign minister should address. Address with the same request that Jaromir Stetina, Karel Schwarzenberg’s party ally, presented at his senatorial level to American senators. And with the same aim – in the interests of the Czech Republic and the United States. Current three-party coalition government of the Czech Republic is in office since July 13th. Count Schwarzenberg heads the party TOP 09. Earlier this year, prominent member of his party, senator Jaromir Stetina, has addressed American senators with an Open letter titled Actions of Radio Free Europe Damage Czech Republic and the United States. Describing morally and ethically unacceptable discrimination of foreigners employed by Radio Free Europe in Prague, Senator Stetina, in his internationally widely quoted letter, suggested the following: "There are two simple steps dictated by common sense and by presumption of moral and political sensitivity: Step 1. Harmful lawsuits should be stopped. RFE/RL should be instructed to make a peaceful offer to the plaintiffs, Snjezana Pelivan and Anna Karapetian, commensurate with human and professional injustice suffered by them already. Step 2. Abandon RFE/RL discriminative employment policies." Presently, human rights lawsuit against Czech Republic, as the country that on its territory tolerates national discrimination of RFE/RL foreign employees depriving them simultaneously of the right to fair trial, is pending in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The charges are brought by Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan, former RFE/RL marketing manager. In Czech courts, there is a labor case against RFE/RL by Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian, a mother of three minors, also former RFE/RL employee. Lidové noviny writes: Pelivan’s and Karapetian’s employment was terminated after years of impeccable service with RFE/RL -- terminated without any preliminary disciplinary measures, without warning, without any stated reason. And even without severance pay for the years of work, for they refused to accept such a mode of termination and give up in writing their right to challenge it in courts of law. RFE/RL Czech employees are protected by the Czech Labor Code; Americans – by American laws including federal Civil Rights Act and District of Columbia Human Rights Act. But the foreigners are subject only to BBG-designed RFE/RL "policy of company," which Czech Senator Jaromir Stetina in his letter to American senators calls "indecent, unfair, cynical and hypocritical." At the end of last month, Czech Supreme Court cancelled all previous, negative for Anna Karapetian, court decisions in her labor suit against RFE/RL. The case is sent for new consideration from the very beginning. Supreme Court decreed that arbitrary terminations of RFE/RL foreign employees should not be accepted without scrutiny by lower courts. In its Press Release issued in Prague, Czech Supreme Court Decides Against Radio Free Europe. What’s Next? Information Centre CAUCASUS-CENTRAL EUROPE (ICCEE), the publisher of Armenian magazine Orer, quotes the article published July 10 by AZG, Czech Supreme Court Rules Against Radio Free Europe: "(One may) think that internationally circulated indignant letter by Czech senator Jaromir Stetina was read with due attention not in the U.S. Senate only. Otherwise, one is hard put to interpret such a radical turnabout of the Czech Supreme Court where on December 8, 2008, panel of the same three judges came to a directly opposite conclusion in strictly analog case of Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan v. RFE/RL… At the same time, the Supreme Court ruling only raises additionally the success chances of the human rights claim by Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan in Strasbourg – clearly, to the detriment of Czech international standing and against feudal interests of RFE/RL American bureaucracy." Of 147 cases against Czech Republic tried by the Court in Strasbourg, Prague won only four – the statistics are in public domain. In its "2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" presented on March 11, 2010 in Washington, U.S. State Department, criticizes Czech Republic for widespread violations of the fair trial principle, use of political influence in matters of justice, violation of national equality in treatment of Roma, etc. On July 12, 2010, in Prague, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg signed for his party, TOP 09, governmental Coalition Agreement, which, in section Foreign Policy, stipulates (translation): In the coming years, it will have, as the main goal, to strengthen good name of the Czech Republic in the world. With that in mind, we shall struggle for: -- Support of human rights as integral part of the post-revolutionary development in Czech foreign policy. -- Strengthening of public diplomacy as effective tool to present Czech Republic abroad. Evidently, the scandalous Karapetian’s and Pelivan’s court cases make a manifested mockery of such pronouncements. Regrettable status quo is amply documented by numerous, highly critical to American RFE/RL and its host country, Czech Republic, publications in English, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Armenian, Slovak, etc. A short (!) list of such publications generally accessible in Internet reads like a road map to satisfactory solution of ugly international problem created by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "Radio Free Europe – Guantanamo in Prague," "On Air in Legal Vacuum," "Czech MP Questions Pelivan Case," "Czech Sovereignty Ends at RFE/RL," "Free Europe With Its Own Laws in Colonial Czech Republic?" "From Human Rights Show to Human Rights Court," "Equality With Precondition. Practice of Free Europe Contradicts Its Ideals," " Czech Politician Accuses U.S. of Discrimination Against Foreign Journalists," "Prague Spring of 2009 Leads to Strasbourg," "Public Disaster Instead of Public Diplomacy," "Czech MP Writes to U.S. Counterparts Over Work Conditions in RFE/RL," "U.S. Attorney General is Asked to Investigate Fraud at RFE/RL," "Doomsday of Radio Liberty. From Double Standards to Double Morals?" "A Sense of Betrayal," "New Administration Must Undo RFE/RL Anti-Diplomacy Abroad," "BBG, RFE/RL: Bring Public Diplomats Instead of Public Bureaucrats," "Don’t Feed Kremlin’s Public Diplomacy With U.S. Public Hypocrisy," "Cases of Karapetian and Pelivan as Morality Check for Obama Administration. Radio Free Europe to Face European Court of Human Rights," "News Flashes From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The Face of America Abroad," "Radio Liberty Betrays its Ideals," "Czech senator angry about Croat’s lawsuit" "Hillary is Expected in Court Because of Radio Liberty" "Discrimination of Foreigners in Czech Republic"… A simple diplomatic action by the Czech Foreign Minister, may radically change the situation, suggests respectable Prague newspaper in its article RFE – Task for Schwarzenberg. |
