Czech president slammed for joke

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on Czech President Milos Zeman to apologise for making a “bad” joke alluding to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

“I love journalists, that’s why I may organise a special banquet for them this evening at the Saudi embassy,” Zeman told a group of reporters after he gave a speech on Thursday.

RSF said it condemned Zeman’s latest joke as it was in the worst possible taste and came at the expense of journalists.

Khashoggi was last seen in public on October 2 when he entered the Saudi consulate.

RSF posted on its website that “Zeman has a long history of bad jokes at the expense of journalists.”

He greeted journalists with a dummy Kalashnikov at a press conference in October 2017. In May 2017, he said journalists should be “liquidated” because “there are too many of them”. —