Daily newspapers surveyed: Cesky denik, Lidova demokracie, Lidove noviny, Mlada fronta Dnes, Prace, Rude pravo, Svobodne slovo, Telegraf (in alphabetical order).

CESKY DENIK (right-wing) continues its campaign against the fact that the Parliament has again voted for the exemption of its deputies from customs control. CD contends that the accepted version of the law grants to the deputies greater privileges on the borders than to diplomats, in whom these privileges are understandable. "They must have confused parliamentary and diplomatic immunity," comments CD sarcastically.

LIDOVE NOVINY (liberal). All Czech daily papers including CD informs about a tax amendment which will increase the prices of tobacco but lower the prices of wine. The amendment was a result of wine producers' complaints about excessive taxation of their products.

MLADA FRONTA DNES (centrist, independent) reports in detail about the incident in the Slovak town of Sahy, where a Jewish cemetery was vandalized on July,3,1993 by "unknown people". Locals find it hard to accept that the damage - the systematic destruction of no less than 120 gravestones - could have been done by some skinheads or normal vandals.

PRACE (trade-union) brings an interview with Chairman of Parliament Milan Uhde, who is annoyed that his Stalinist poem - written and published when he was 16 - is still being quoted and used against him. Mr.Uhde stresses that he soon grew up of his Stalinist enthusiasm and never became a member of the Communist Party. (JJ: However, he is not able to dispel suspicion of a more serious and recent wrongdoing - the fact that he seems to have recommended to Government, as Minister of Culture, a private company co-owned by his wife.)

RUDE PRAVO (left-wing) brings a polemic of historian Jan Rychlik and Social Democratic deputy Vaclav Grulich against the accepted notion that the Catholic Church has a right to have its property (which had been confiscated by Communists) returned. First of all, in a secular state the Church is simply an organization like any other; "restitution" of property concerns, according to the law, only individuals, not organizations, and why should the Catholic Church be an exception? Second, the property itself is dubious: already the law of 1919 has confiscated such vast lands if they belonged to single owner; therefore, to enable the Church to keep these lands, the state had to put it under its own disposal, i.e. that technically the property used by the Church didn't even actually belong to it.

TELEGRAF (conservative) warns in an editorial that "the restoration of the Church in Poland is a memento for us...As Nietzsche says, human nature tolerates victories worse than defeats. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church interpret the defeat of Communism as their own victory. It is not so, and the majority of the Czech population doesn't see it that way."

Telegraf also informs about the "martial law for Gypsies" which has been recently declared in one East Slovakian town, where Gypsies were ordered not to be on the streets between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m., the city police can enter a Gypsy apartment without a warrant, and Gypsies can be deported outside the town if they don't have permanent residence there.