Did Prague really turn off the webcams and did not inform CT, as the speakers of the anti-government demonstration claimed?
Several speakers at Saturday’s anti-government demonstration stated in their speeches that the municipality of the capital city of Prague, represented by Mayor Zdeňek Hřib, had turned off the webcams on Wenceslas Square so that no one would know about the demonstrations. Speaker Zuzana Majerová Zahradníková similarly stated that Czech Television does not report on the demonstration.
Jindřich Rajchl, in turn, said after his arrival on the stage: “There are so many of us here that he is starting to fear us. Czech TV does not broadcast about it at all, the mayor of Prague, Mr. Hřib, had the webcams from Wenceslas Square turned off. They are so afraid of us.’
In Wenceslas Square, the webcam at the Yalta Hotel did not work, but it is private and has not been working since the beginning of August. The operator of the webcam, Martin Zíka, said: “I created the worldcamera.net and praguecamera.net projects while studying in elementary school and participated with them in the Junior Internet competition in 2012. For the installation of the camera on Wenceslas Square, I managed to get a valuable sponsor, my father, who was enthusiastic about the project. From the beginning, we had the goal of showing the world the beauty of our capital and other corners of the republic. In addition to the newly renovated building of the National Museum, various demonstrations come into view, we may or may not agree with the content. However, we will certainly not allow the student project to become a victim of political shows of force. As already pointed out by the observant visitors, the webcam outages lasted for almost a month and therefore was a third party technical problem. The project is not in any way supported or financed by the Prague municipality and we strongly deny that the transfer was intentional. We believe in freedom of speech, including the right to look at the events around the statue of St. Wenceslas at any time. We operate independently as a non-profit project. I would also like to use this space to thank the Yalta Hotel, which provides us with space and all the necessary cooperation for operation. We managed to solve the technical problem today and I hope you will enjoy the view of the historic center, even if the demonstration is not currently underway.’
the municipality’s webcam was running the whole time, as the pirate mayor Hřib also proves in his statement. The recording from this camera even served the Police to estimate the number of participants in the demonstration. And she posted it on her Twitter.
Similarly to the municipality, the speakers falsely attacked Czech Television, which played and did not report on the demonstrations. As the opening image of this post proves, for example, at 15:03, ČT24 broadcast a live entry from Wenceslas Square. There were several live entries during the demonstration on ČT24, and Czech Television subsequently also reported on the demonstration in prime time on ČT 1.
The alleged shutdown of the webcam and the alleged lack of information on the part of ČT can be described as a lying hoax.