AVU Academic Senate Statement on current events and support for the call for a solidarity strike

The AVU Academic Senate stands for the independence of public media, cultural and educational institutions, and the people who shape them through their daily work. We need a space where we can collectively develop critical thinking, share and question experiences, articulate different perspectives, and engage in discussion without fear of obstruction by those in power. We need a space where even voices that the Minister of Culture does not wish to hear can be heard.

We view the proposal to abolish television and radio license fees—and the manner in which it was pushed through to a second reading during a limited debate early Saturday morning—as a threat to this space. We view this in the context of the steps and planned changes by the Czech Ministry of Culture regarding the financing, management, and oversight of cultural institutions and organizations, as well as the draft outline of a new law on higher education being prepared by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. The Council of Higher Education Institutions, academic senates and other voices from the academic community have drawn attention to the risks of a weakening of academic autonomy and the politicisation of universities.

These connections lead us to mutual support between schools, cultural institutions, and public service media. In this situation, we express our solidarity and join the Memorandum on Cooperation and Solidarity among University Students in Defence of the Independence of Public Service Media, the AVU Student Solidarity Committee, and the appeal by the DAMU Academic Senate addressed to the Prime Minister, which we reiterate: we call for the dismissal of the Minister of Culture, Oto Klempíř. His actions to date and his announced plans are undermining confidence in expert and independent decision-making in the cultural sphere and creating uncertainty for the people and organisations whose work the Ministry is supposed to support.

We also support the strike alert and strike called by the AVU Trade Union for 3 November 2026 in solidarity with the striking staff of Czech Television and Czech Radio, as well as with the student and civic initiatives campaigning in defence of independent media and cultural institutions.

Freedom of information, artistic expression, and education must be protected from the interests of the current political leadership. Culture and education are not services that can be acquired whenever it suits, but institutions upon which a free society is built. We regard any undermining of these as an attack on that society itself — and we reject it.

The Academic Senate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague is committed to the tradition of the academic community, which actively engages in public debate in times of social tension. In doing so, it also fulfils the mission of higher education institutions as enshrined in Section 1(e) of Act No. 111/1998 Coll., on Higher Education Institutions, according to which higher education institutions “play an active role in public debate on social and ethical issues […] in shaping civil society and preparing young people for life within it”.

In Prague, 27 October 2026

AVU Academic Senate