POLITICAL PURGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27213, 17 October 1949, Page 5

POLITICAL PURGES

Arrests To Continue CZECH PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT NZPA—CopyrightRec. 9.28 p.m. PRAGUE, Oct. 15. The Czech press announced to-day that the police round-ups for political purges would continue “ until hostile elements and imperialist agents are liquidated.” The imprisonment of thousands of people, and job dismissals were officially attributed to protecting the nation against “ agents of foreign Powers”—Western imperialists and Yugoslavia. For the first time since the Czech round-up began last month, a report circulated to-day that drrests included a member of the Communist Party Committee. The man said' to have been arrested was responsible for guiding much of the land and agricultural reform.

In France to-day, the newspaper, Figaro, published a letter, said to have been written by workers in the Czech Skoda works at Pilsen, condemning the Communist regime. The letter, addressed to the French Communists, said many Skoda workers had.been arrested or sent to the mines as forced labour for striking against the work and pay systems. The strike was considered high treason and punished as such. The letter added that there had been wholesale pay reductions of 20 per cent., the introduction of a six-day week and the suppression of holidays.