A Dissident Writes

The following letter is extracted from The Guardian Letters' Page from Saturday, 7 May, commenting on the police tactics of rounding up republicans and other potential protesters ahead of the Royal Wedding (see earlier posts for more).

I would like to point out that the tactics used by the police in London during the royal wedding (Report, 30 April) are exactly the same that communist police used in Czechoslovakia against human rights activists and dissidents in the 1970s and 80s before each controversial political anniversary (the August 1968 Soviet invasion etc), and always before a visit of a western politician. Dissidents were detained for 24 or 48 hours. After the western politician left the country, they were released. Another technique used by the communist police against dissidents quite often was to drive them out into the countryside in the middle of the night and drop them in the middle of nowhere, so that they would not get back to Prague in time for the planned event.

I think it is important to warn people that Britain is starting to adopt the policies of former communist states.
Jan Culik
Czech studies, University of Glasgow

Moved by the same issues of pre-emptive arrests, Labour MP John McDonnell reflects on the spread of police power and the apparent carte blanche issued by the Government.