A prosecutors' raid on Polish weekly Wprost, which published the recorded conversations of top Polish politicians, poses questions about freedom of the press in Poland. But the whole scandal says even more about the state of the media in Poland. After 25 years of democracy, now is a good time to ask how free and professional they really are.

A recent proposal by the Czech government that shifts more attention to socio-economic rights in the country’s foreign policy has whipped up a lot of emotions. Most foreign policy pundits dismissed it as too ideological and naïve. The controversy is fueled by essential disagreements on which ‘human rights’ matter, what ‘the West’ stands for, and more importantly, what really shaped the Czech post-89 past.

In its June 2014 survey, the Public Opinion Research Centre of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Centrum pro výzkum veřejného mínění, Sociologický ústav AV ČR, CVVM) asked Czech respondents about social acceptance of homosexuality. It conducted a public opinion poll among 1049 Czechs over 15 on whether gay people should have the right to enter into a registered partnership or marriage or adopt children.