THE campaign to win the release of the ten Charter supporters arrested and jailed in May has been taken up by the Labour Party NEC. A resolution from the NEC describes the arrests as 'the most serious acts of repression seen in Czechoslovakia since the 1950s'. The charges carrying sentences of between three and ten years in jail.
The NEC also added its support to international appeal against the trials which has already been signed by 77 Labour MPs and decided to send an official delegation to present its protest to the Czechoslovak Embassy. The delegation included Joan Lestor, Alex Kitson, and Tony Benn, but was refused entry to the Embassy the represented a gross interference in the internal affairs of chairperson the committee, said later that the Labour Party in defendants await trial Rights an that the Joan Lestor, party's would continue to pursue the matter.
The case is also being taken up by a newly formed Lawyers Committee to of Political Defendants in slovakia, which includes the President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Platts-Mills, and the Solicitor-General in the last Labour government, Peter committee intends to take up the legal aspect of the case and do what it can to ensure that the accused are adequately defended.
'At the same time the committee is aiming to establish links the Committee Defend Those Prosecuted (VONS), to which accused belong. This poses particular problems for the Prague regime, because it will have 1o explain CzechoJohn Archer. The Europe.
built upon Czechoslovak Unjustly all the ten members and the like it is imprisoning people in Czechoslovakia for activity very similar to that of the Haldane Society in Britain — which is praised in the official party press.
The movement of protest against the trial has been the most significant to date by the British The Labour resolution particular is a real breakthrough which must be There are already signs that the volume of protest in the Western labour movement has surprised the Prague regime, whose international position is especially weak because of its • origins in the 1968 Soviet invasion. There are reports of divisions within the ruling group over the handling of the opposition, and this would A guard explains there is no room for a Savak torturer because the jail is filled with oil workers, HAS seem to be postponement of the trial.
which the oppositions in Czechoslovakia taking on the most effective disruption production.
for the defence.
Gardens, London Defence Committee, Montpelier. Road, Londor Charter Defence Fund, House of Commons, London SW1.
out b! the indefinite The attack on Charter 77 appears to have been conceived as the first in a series of trials in and East Germany would be cleaned up prior to developed opposition movement of all — in Poland. Through its of the first act of this performance, the Isbour movement is now calling into question the future of the whole Socialist Challenge urges its supporerters to get resolutions passed and organise collections . Copies of resolutions to the Czechoslovak Embassy, 25 Kensington Palace W8, and to Charter 14 Elgin W5; money 1o c/o Reg Race MP, *Picket the Iranian