Respekt is a Czech weekly newsmagazine published in Prague, the Czech Republic, reporting on domestic and foreign political and economic issues, as well as on science and culture. History and profile [[Image:respekt cover 1990-01.gif|thumb|upright|Respekt'''s first cover (March 14, 1990)]]Respekt was founded very soon after the fall of Communist party from power in 1989 by a group of samizdat journalists as one of the first independent magazines. It is the successor of Informační servis (Information service), an opposition samizdat paper. Respekt is published weekly and has its headquarters in Prague. The New York Times describes Respekt as "influential." Several people involved with Respekt became influential in top level politics of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic; among them the first editor-in-chief Jan Ruml who served as the Minister of Interior between 1992 and 1997, Martin Fendrych (official at the Ministry of Interior) and (several ministerial position). Editors describe Respekt as "a liberal magazine which stands up for freedom of thought and the need of continuous questioning of its outcomes". The weekly concentrates on investigative journalism (often using information gleaned from police sources) and in-depth articles, and has been expanding to cover ecological activism and alternative culture movements in recent years. In 2005 Respekt published details about business connection between Prime Minister Stanislav Gross' wife and a brothel owner, starting a scandal leading to downfall of Gross several months later; in 2008 it published an article alleging that Milan Kundera, when a student, denounced to the police a Czech spy for the West.Milan Kundera demands apology from Respekt for defaming him The circulation of the weekly peaked at over 100,000 copies in the middle of the 1990s. At this time the (loss generating) weekly was bought by Karel Schwarzenberg´s R-Presse. The circulation has been dropping steadily over the time causing Respekt's losses to increase to 7 million Czk in 2003. In 2006 Zdeněk Bakala obtained majority in Respekt and planned to eliminate the loss by making the journal more mainstream. The proposed changes led to fear among both readers and the editors that the unique flavour of the weekly will be destroyed; in September 2006 all editors threatened to leave. Within a week the owners submitted to the pressure, recalled the manager responsible to implement the changes and brought in a new editor-in-chief, Martin M. Šimečka, former editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily SME. Modification of the visual style and the format was delayed