Activist Jan Tamas, who has been on hunger strike since May 13 along with Jan Bednar, wrote a letter to Klaus on Friday and asked him for a meeting. Klaus said today he would not refuse to meet people with "a very strong opinion" about the building of the U.S.
radar on the Brdy military grounds, 90 km southwest of Prague, but he ruled out "a possibility to have a discussion with blackmailing in the form of a hunger strike." "We are living in a standard parliamentary democracy and hunger strikes are suitable for totalitarian regimes. They have nothing to do here," Klaus added. Both activists are to announce today that they will interrupt their hunger strike. Foreign Minister Karel Czech opposition head wants to ask Rice not to sign radar treaty ...
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CzechRep below EU average in foreigner integration - MIPEX ... Schwarzenberg received them last week. Defence Minister Vlasta Parkanova (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) called the strikers blackmailers to whom one should not yield. Senior opposition Social Democrat (CSSD) chairman Jiri Paroubek also met the activists. The Social Democrats on Sunday decided to support Tamas and Bednar with a chain hunger strike. Alena Gajduskova, head of CSSD senator group said she was prepared to start it herself. She said the strikers would not eat for 48 hours, but some other CSSD members spoke about 24 hours only. "A couple of days of hunger would definitely do some politicians good. I would eventually joint it. If the Social Democratic Party feels it is exactly the most suitable therapy for it...it might be a good idea, "Klaus said, jokingly. He, however, added that "launching a hunger strike is really undignified." "We have no need to do so any longer for the 18 years [since the collapse of communism]," Klaus stressed. The United States wants to build the radar base in the Czech Republic and a base for ten interceptor missiles in Poland within its missile defence shield to protect the United States and a large part of the European continent against missiles that states like Iran might launch. The Czech-U.S. treaties on the base are to be signed by July. Two-thirds of the Czech public are opposed to the radar project, according to the latest public opinion polls.
(Ceske Noviny)
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