“Shame on you!” chanted about 3,000 people in Prague’s Wenceslas Square, targeting both Zeman and populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, his ally.

“No to attacks on Česká televize and journalists,” read one banner.

The pro-Russia Zeman, who won a second five-year term in a January election, is known for his aversion to journalists.

Last May, he told his political ally Russian President Vladimir Putin that “journalists should be liquidated”.

In his inauguration speech last week, Zeman accused Česká televize and some printed media outlets of “trying to manipulate the public”.

The billionaire Prime Minister Babiš once called Česká televize reporters “a corrupt bunch”.

“Media freedom is absolutely essential,” František Laudát, former right-wing lawmaker and now a National Museum employee, told AFP.

“We have seen attacks on Česká televize in the past… if the current politicians swap its management, people in this country will no longer learn what is true and we’re back in the Communist times when lying was a standard,” he added.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia formed Czechoslovakia until their split in 1993, four years after the country shed its totalitarian Communist rule of four decades.

Media freedom became a sensitive issue in the region last month when Slovak investigative journalist Ján Kuciak was murdered together with his fiancee.

Kuciak was working on an article unveiling links between the Italian mafia and the Slovak government. Local police said his work was a likely motive for the murder.

“I feel anxious. I have children who are rather active so I’m worried,” pensioner Alena Hrdinová told AFP at the Prague rally.