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Babis, the country's second-richest man, founded a political
movement that stormed to power in 2013. But his businesses have
left him exposed to criticism of potential conflicts of
interest, and hackers have now also taken aim at his companies.
Lupa.cz, a private news agency, reported that Czech hackers from
Anonymous shut down the websites of Babis's holding company
Agrofert and bakery group Penam for a short period on Monday
evening.
An Agrofert spokesman confirmed on Tuesday the websites were
down for around five minutes.
The hacker group has threatened more website attacks against
Agrofert and lawmakers and called for the cancellation of the
new law that places greater restrictions on gambling and allows
the ministry to close sites operating illegally in the Czech
Republic.
"The Finance Ministry led by Andrej Babis gets almost limitless
power to censor the internet. It is time to move against it,"
Anonymous said in a video posted on Youtube on July 18
describing what it called Operation Blockade.
The hackers also demanded the end of a planned online system for
monitoring retail sales that the finance ministry is launching
at the end of the year.
Babis has put new emphasis on battling tax fraud and improving
collection to boost state coffers since becoming finance
minister in 2014. The gambling laws and online sales reporting
system are part of that effort.
He told Reuters on Tuesday he had met before with a
representative of Anonymous and added he would file a criminal
complaint over the attacks.
"We only want to apply rules used by 18 (European Union)
countries already, nobody wants to censor the internet. It is
aimed against gambling companies that do not pay taxes," Babis
said.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet and Robert Muller; Editing by Richard
Balmforth)
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