POLICE STATE PROVOKING A CZECH REACTION

Grey River Argus, 8 October 1949, Page 5

POLICE STATE PROVOKING A CZECH REACTION

PRAGUE. October 6.

Road and rail traffic to and from, Prague was being checked to-day as the police combed the city making widespread arrests. Roads have been watched all the week and every traveller .has to satisfy the police about his identity. Just what is happening is not clear but shooting incidents have occurred and many administrative chiefs in the Ministries are under, 1 arrest or are held for investigation. Everything suggests that a vigorous purge is at present proceeding and hundreds of persons suspected of unreliability are being picked up by the police. There are multiplying reports of arrests, purges, mysterious disappearances and shootings. So many local reside.nts and sources outside Prague have reported the disappearance of friends and relatives that it is now evident that the arrests number many hundreds and may even be thousands. Arrests by Thousands In Several Centres GOVERNMENT’S SECRET PLAN OPERATING (Per British United Press). (Rec 9.0) PRAGUE, Oct 7. The Czech Government has begun action under its secret “Tridni Boj” (Class Warfare) Plan, providing for the arrest’ of people suspected of being against the State. Unconfirmed reports say that the police have arrested between 2000 and 5700 people in Prague in the past 72 hours.

Similar reports from Brno .in Moravia, and from Ziina tell of sudden swoops by the Czech police. The Tridni Boj Plan was drawn up to smash resistance to the Communist Government. It is directed against three groups—firstly, the members of the Opposition National Socialist Party, which bitterly opposed the Communists; secondly, the professional men and the independent merchants, and thirdly, against the Roman Catholics, and especially the priests.