IF STRUGGLING FOR FREEDOM AND LIFE IS A CRIME, I AM ALSO A CRIMINAL.

Some people may still be missing and 20 remain incarcerated following the protests against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on September 26th – 28th in Prague.

Many people have been missing for days and some have been missing for more than ten days, and their friends and families haven't had any news or any opportunity to communicate with them, which makes the work of legal assistance impossible. The database of the legal observers has still 70 people with the status of 'arrested' or 'missing', and we cannot know to what extent this is accurate since the Czech Ministry of the Interior still refuses to make available the lists of people arrested during the protests. This absolute lack of transparency, characteristic of dictatorial regimes, must be stopped NOW.

In addition to the disappearances, other human rights abuses reported by the team of independent legal observers in Prague include:

• denial of the right to food
• denial of the right to legal representation
• denial of the right to communicate (no telephone calls have been allowed)
• many prisoners have been severely beaten, documented cases include: broken arms, ribs, teeth, fingers, noses, genitalia pulled and twisted, some beatings lasted over 40 minutes
• many prisoners have been subjected to varying degrees of physical, psychological and sexual harrassment.

WE NEED YOUR HELP.

We feel these people's lives may be in jeopardy, and with each passing day that we are denied information our concern deepens.

OUR IMMEDIATE DEMANDS:

• The unconditional release without charges of all the prisoners who are still in jail due to the actions in Prague and the return of all their material belongings.
• That the Czech Ministry of the Interior publicly acknowledges and apologises for the criminalisation and the manipulation of information that we have been subjected to.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Put pressure on your local Czech embassy: a variety of actions/visitations/occupations have happened and are being planned in Amsterdam, The Hague, Berne, Berlin, Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome. More are being planned in these cities and others.

Fundraise and send us money to get these people out and pay for proper legal representation.

Flood the Czech embassy, The International Court of Justice, Amnesty International, Czech President Vaclav Havel and Czech Ministry of the Interior Stanislav Gross with phone calls and letters and make sure your embassy in Prague is doing its job properly by calling and writing them.

Czech Embassy in The Hague: (70) 3469712; 3647638; 3563349 E-mail: hague@embassy.mzv.cz

The International Court Of Justice in The Hague: (70) 3022323; 3649928 E-mail: mail@icj-cij.org

Amnesty International Amsterdam: (20) 6264436; Fax: 6240889; E-mail: amnesty@amnesty.nl

Czech President Vaclav Havel: (42-02) 24372235; Fax: 57320472; E-mail: president@hrad.cz

Czech Ministry of the Interior Stanislav Gross: (42-02) 61421115; E-mail: dotazy@mvcr.cz

To contact us to make donations or for more information write:
stop.repression@gmx.net or jailsolidarity@yahoo.com;
to read the full copy of the original call to action that inspired this flyer go to: http://www.prague.indymedia.org;

"You do not become a 'dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society."

Written by the Czech president Vaclav Havel, many years ago...