“The pressure on the government is increasing. Demonstrators plan to go in front of government buildings this week. This is undoubtedly more pressure,” Aktuálně.cz reporter Radek Bartoníček describes the mood at the anti-government demonstrations. The protest “against poverty” was called again on Wenceslas Square on Sunday by the chairman of the PRO movement, Jindřich Rajchl: “It’s scary on stage,” adds the reporter.
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Spotlight Aktuálně.cz – Radek Bartoníček | Video: Jakub Zuzánek
Until the “horribly clenched fist” and calls for the resignation of Petr Fiala’s cabinet. This is how protest convener Jindřich Rajchl spoke to the crowds demonstrating against the government again on Sunday. At the last demonstration, he called for a general strike and even a blockade of government buildings. In the end, the protesters did not even carry out the planned human chain at the Government Office.
“I wouldn’t call the people who come to protest desolate, I wouldn’t even say they are pro-Russian. It’s a very diverse group of people and there may be someone from our neighborhood,” Bartoníček describes the participants in the demonstrations.
According to a reporter who has been following the protests directed against the government for a long time, the motivations with which people come to anti-government “meetings” are also different. According to Bartoníček, some are “doing well”, but fear that the government is not doing enough for the future of their children or pensioners. Others feel the difficult life situation on their own skin and this made them take to the streets. “And there are also people who say that they themselves voted for the coalition of five or the ODS,” adds the journalist.
And he claims that what unites the demonstrators is above all a distrust of traditional media. That is also why he himself decided to regularly go out among the protesters and listen to their problems. “Even a number of politicians in the parliament thank me for doing this, because that way they get feedback. They say that suddenly they can hear the people and, above all, see how they speak, and this is valuable information for them,” he adds.
