Czech President Milos Zeman has decided against awarding a state medal to a Holocaust survivor whose nephew, a government minister, met exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama against the president's wishes, the minister said on Friday.
The Czech Republic has been engulfed in political furor over the Dalai Lama's meetings earlier in the week with Culture Minister Daniel Herman against the wishes of China's government — which sees the Dalai Lama as a separatist — and Zeman, who has strongly pushed for a closer economic relationship with China.
The drive to focus on Chinese investment has met opposition from many corners of the EU member country, whose postcommunist policy set by the late President Vaclav Havel strongly promoted human rights. Havel was a friend of the Tibetan Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.