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- <text id=89TT2835>
- <title>
- Oct. 30, 1989: World Notes:Czechoslovakia
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Oct. 30, 1989 San Francisco Earthquake
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 71
- World Notes
- CZECHOSLOVAKIA
- Anniversary Blues
- </hdr><body>
- <p> When playwright Vaclav Havel arrived at a restaurant for a
- meeting of the Helsinki Human Rights Monitoring Committee last
- week, other members shouted at him to flee. Havel, who was
- released from prison in May after a conviction for inciting
- antistate activities, obeyed the warning and thus avoided
- becoming the 16th committee member arrested by security police
- for unspecified reasons. In a continuing crackdown underscoring
- its resistance to reform, the government of Milos Jakes last
- week also briefly arrested five human rights activists meeting
- in a private apartment.
- </p>
- <p> Still facing charges of inciting antistate activities was
- the most prominent victim of the crackdown so far: Jiri Ruml,
- 64, editor of the independent monthly newspaper Lidove Noviny
- (People's News). He and co-editor Rudolf Zeman, 50, were
- arrested two weeks ago and taken to Prague's infamous Ruzyne
- prison. They face jail terms of up to five years if convicted
- under Czechoslovakia's Article 100 law banning most forms of
- dissident expression. Their continued detention may be the
- regime's way of closing down the feisty Lidove Noviny (circ.
- 5,000) as well as of warning protesters to stay off the streets
- this week as the country celebrates its 71st anniversary.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-