Call for dissidents’ release

Press, 1 February 1988, Page 8

Call for dissidents’ release

NZPA-Reuter Bonn The West German Foreign Minister, HansDietrich Genscher, has appealed to East Germany’s communist leadership to release men and women imprisoned during a recent crackdown on dissent. East Germany’s Protestant Church also called for the release of at least 10 dissidents from Church-affiliated peace and human-rights groups still in detention after an abortive demonstration

two weeks ago. “We call on the East German leadership to replace criminal proceedings .with dialogue and tolerahce,” Mr Genscher told members of his Free Democratic Party (FDP), one of three parties in Bonn’s centre-right federal Government. “We call on the East German leadership to release the detainees and to open discussions with the young.”

Around 200 activists were imprisoned by East German authorities this

month when some of them tried to join an official march commemorating two German revolutionaries murdered in 1919. Most were later freed, but last Monday police swooped on another six dissidents, who are among those now in custody. Mr Genscher said the dissidents had gathered peacefully and “cannot understand that the society they live in ... can mistrust them so much, and even start

criminal proceedings against them.” A statement read to more than 2300 people crammed into East Berlin’s Gethsemane church said the Protestant Church “now as before calls for the release of those detained and supports their family members.” East Berlin’s bishop, Gottfried Forck, said in a sermon that all activists should show restraint and the Government should be tolerant.