These are still largely the same police who were trained and worked under the authoritarian Communist regime, and their attitudes and methods have not changed. The Czech Republic is heading the queue to join the European Union. In the week when the European Convention on Human Rights was incorporated into the UK statutes, this could not be more relevant. Such abuses of basic human rights do not belong anywhere on earth. Below are the contact details for the UK offices for Amnesty International, the Czech Embassy in London and the UK embassy in Prague.
Faxes are preferred, as letters can take a while and emails are easily deleted.
Reports of beatings against these groups are far less than those from the UK, Germany and the USA whose embassies have been pretty damn useless so far. But more than anything, we need to stress outrage at the treatment of Czech detainees. Czech activists expressed huge support for the protest, but many were scared to turn out on the day for fear of reprisals from the police. However, over the following few days the police arrested many Czechs. On the marches with all the confrontational stuff the press have made such a big do of there were about 60 arrests.