Czech rapper disqualified from competition for promoting violence against women

News server Musicserver.cz has reported that the conveners of the Czech Nightingale (Český slavík) music competition have disqualified the rapper Martin Pohl, who performs under the nickname "Řezník" (Butcher) from the category of Internet Star without any warning and instead declared the performer Johny Machette the victor in that category. The organizers reject charges of censorship and say they excluded the rapper because they found his lyrics to describe "wrongful acts".

Matěj Ruppert, a singer with the Czech band Monkey Business, has decided to return his own award which he won in the 2006 survey to the competition organizers over the decision. Posting to the Facebook page of the competition, the organizers explained their exclusion of Řezník by saying that "the lyrics of his songs contain vulgarities about various groups, explicitly depicting violence and the use of addictive substances."

In their view these are "wrongful acts that contravene the principles of the competition". "We’ve found the solution/ let the scaffolding fall on the bums from Karlák/ the Ukrainians will be hung en masse," are the lyrics to one of the controversial video clips which Řezník performs together with two other rappers.

"I see this as a dangerous step – no one should dictate what is permitted in culture and what isn’t. No one has the right to be the arbiter of taste. This is a dangerous precedent that is just adding the finishing touches to the situation in society," Ruppert told news server iDNES.cz about his decision to return his prize from 2006.

"We are definitely not censoring anyone. Everyone can play and sing what they want. However, we do not want lyrics like Řezník’s awarded the Internet Star," Jaroslav Těšínský of the Musica Bohemica agency, which convenes the contest, told iDNES.cz. 

Martin Pohl ran into problems with the law last year for selling t-shirts online with the image of Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik and slogans about his murdering 77 people. Police began to investigate the case after a 15-year-old pupil wore one of the t-shirts to school in Břeclav in October.

A police spokesperson says professional experts have confirmed that the slogan on the t-shirt promotes the idea of committing acts of terrorism. Pohl disagrees with that evaluation, claiming he just wanted to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the harmfulness of computer games.   

The conveners of the Czech Nightingale competition say they are bound by the legal regulations of the Czech Republic, which forbid them from connecting their advertising activity, which the contest is considered a part of, with the promotion of violence or the degradation of human dignity. "This entire case is not about evaluating the content of the creative work of the performer Martin Pohl, but is exclusively about the legitimacy of the conveners to exclude a performer from the competition with respect to the contest rules and legal regulations in the field of advertising communications. On the basis of the facts, the convener was obligated to excluded that participant from competition," lawyer Petr Kůta said.   

Musica Bohemia has also sent Mr Pohl an open letter explaining their reasons for eliminating him from the competition. "We decidedly do not want to support and will not promote extreme violence as you systematically do in your business activities and lyrics," the conveners wrote, adding that the rapper also sings in a very vulgar way about harming women, for example.

The competition organizers’ full statement is as follows:

Recently attention has been drawn not only to the results of the Czech Nightingale 2013 survey, but also to the elimination of performer Martin Pohl (aka Řezník) from the Internet Star 2013 category. This elimination is not due to the artistic aspects of Řezník’s production.    

However, we decidedly do not want to support and will not promote extreme violence as this performer systematically does in his business activities and lyrics. We unequivocally reject violence against women, for example (as in the song "The girl in my cellar") and we will not support it.

We also cannot agree with his sale of t-shirts with slogans such as "Rape is great". In addition to our own values, we are bound by the legal regulations of the Czech Republic, which forbid us from connecting our advertising activity, of which this competition is a part, with the promotion of violence or the degradation of human dignity.   

"This entire case is not about evaluating the content of the creative work of the performer Martin Pohl, but is exclusively about the legitimate right of the convener to exclude a performer from the competition with respect to the contest rules and legal regulations in the field of advertising communications. On the basis of the facts, the convener was obligated to exclude that participant from competition," lawyer Petr Kůta says. 

We have, therefore, eliminated this performer from the final round of competition. Details of the reasons for the elimination of the works of the performer Řezník are stated in an open letter that was published on the evening of 27 November 2013 on the website of our survey.

Everyone can form their own conclusions about Řezník’s work. (There are specific examples of Mr Pohl’s "artistic" and business activities posted beneath the open letter). 

We are not pleased that this commercialized violence is gaining publicity, but the need has arisen to thoroughly explain our decision and we stand by our views on the content of Martin Pohl’s (aka Řezník’s) business activities and music. Music does not support violence, on the contrary, it has stood up to violence since time immemorial.