The Czech counterespionage agency, Bezpecnostni a informacni sluzba (Security and Intelligence Agency, BIS), runs regular university courses at Charles University in Prague. These classes, the content and organisation of which are controlled by BIS, appear to be part of the normal curriculum, but they are in fact a ruse for selecting recruits for the spying agency from amongst the students.

(This story first appeared in Britske listy, a Czech language investigative newspaper - for the original article in Czech see here. )

One of these regular BIS 'courses' takes place every Thursday at 3 pm at the Praha-Jinonice campus in room 2015. Officially, this is an optional course on Intelligence Services, provided by Charles University's Institute for Librarian and Information Studies. But, a student who recently attended this seminar soon found that it is no ordinary course.

There is a 'lecturer,' who takes the class, but there are also two BIS agents present. They sit facing the audience and analyse the behaviour of the individuals in the class, with a view to identifying psychologically appropriate individuals for recruitment.

"A course, run by BIS, the Security and Intelligence Agency?" replied Rudolf Vlasak, Head of the Jinonice Institute for Librarian and Information Studies, when asked about these activities. "Yes, of course, it takes place here at our institute!" Vlasak explained that a former graduate of the school, now an employee of BIS - one Nina Krasenska, asked him to allow BIS to run an espionage recruitment seminar as one of the courses at his Institute, he was happy to oblige.

"The head of BIS and I always look at the content of the course at the beginning of each semester. Yes, some of our students do end up as BIS agents," he added. While trying to block Britske listy reporters from attending the seminar, Nina Krasenska admitted that BIS also runs several other recruiting 'courses' at other Charles University Faculties.

Attendance at the Jinonice seminar is free and BIS does not reimburse the University for running its recruiting course, nor does the University pay BIS for providing the course.

After Britske listy revealed this information on Friday 2 November 2001, and it was quoted the next day by the popular Czech (middle-brow) daily Mlada fronta Dnes, several students who had attended the seminars wrote to Britske listy complaining about the article. They pointed out that they saw no reason why the Security and Intelligence Agency should not conduct such public seminars.

During a class on Thursday 8 November, 2001, the students were given copies of the Britske listy and Mlada fronta Dnes articles. Then, at the instigation of the director of BIS, Jiri Ruzek, and Vlasak, the students, in a replay of a famous scene from Milan Kundera's 1950s novel, The Joke, they voted to expel Britske listy reporters, Tomas Pecina and Stepan Kotrba, from the class for the 'unfriendly' article they had published. (The problem was that the reporters refused to leave.)

As one student put it to Britske listy: 'If your reporters write such critical articles, you will cut yourself off from all sources of information.' The idea that access to information only comes as a reward for complicity or sycophancy is certainly an interesting one.

Several months ago, Charles University became a centre of controversy after a sociology lecturer invited a member of an extreme right organisation to take part in his class as 'a subject of study' for his students. As a result of the subsequent media turmoil, the seminar was abolished and the lecturer, responsible for inviting this 'extremist,' was punished.

I would argue that while it is perfectly legitimate for University's to use people with extreme political views as 'material for study,' political parties, private businesses and government institutions should not be allowed to run their own classes on university time and on university premises under the guise of normal university teaching. If they are then the university's integrity is likely to be compromised.

It is especially unscrupulous to allow BIS agents (most of whom are unreconstructed Communist era spies) to recruit young undergraduates and ensnare them in the shady world of espionage. Especially when they do not have access to objective and impartial information about what such espionage work really entails.