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SME Daily on Friday, November 20
Friday 20 November 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico wants to make use of his right to publish a reply in newspaper, which is included in the Press Act, even though he has pointed out several times that it is an act for citizens, not for politicians, reads SME daily on pages 1 and 2 on Friday.
According to the Press Act, media have the obligation to publish affected persons' replies within three days. "I won't be using this institute, don't be afraid, you can be calm. I will have my say at the press conferences," said Fico in January 2008. Almost two years later, he seems to have changed his mind, asking SME daily to publish his response to criticism concerning his vacation in Malta before 1989.
Fico dislikes a commentary stating he was allegedly able to visit Malta before the Velvet Revolution in 1989 because he could have been a part of the privileged class of (Communist) party core and its hopefuls.
Government Office press department head Brano Ondrus claims that Premier was forced to change his mind on the Press Act by the media, since he had never expected such extensive and hateful campaign against him. According to Ondrus, Fico first stopped answering the journalists, since they are twisting his statements, and then he started to request corrections, which the media are not willing to do. Therefore "the Premier is forced to ensure the right of the citizens to obtain true and objective information through the use of the right to reply."
According to media analyst from Memo 98 Rastislav Kuzel, Fico has confirmed the Press Act was made for politicians, even if they were denying it. The media are obliged to publish a response even if they wrote the truth.
SME daily will publish Fico's reply on Saturday.
A man with injections attacks women in Bratislava, reports the daily on page 5.
Several cases of women being injected an anaesthetic drug has been reported in the Slovak capital in recent month. The police confirmed the drug was Ketamine only in one case so far. The unknown malefactor drugs the victim by injecting the drug to their legs and behind, leaving them unconscious.
In the first reported case, a 24-year-old woman was drugged at a bus stop in the vicinity of main train station in Bratislava, robbed and raped. She woke up six hours later without remembering what has happened.
According to Peter Stanko from the Slovak Pharmacists Chamber, Ketamine has to be ordered by a doctor or acquired illegally.
Slovak Parliament in October ranked Ketamine - a drug used in veterinary and human medicine as an analgesic and anaesthetic and currently fashionable among people - among the Grade Two narcotics (Schedule II to the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances).
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