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August 28th, 2008
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July 16th, 2008 issue

On the radar
The recent missile tests by Iran were clearly intended to set off public protests in Europe to this treaty.
Now it’s all over but the shouting (complaining, whining, etc.).
Bravo to the Czech government for standing up to the socialist (Russian) fifth column who long to be reunited with their ex-Soviet cousins.
Phillip David Haskett
Houston, Texas
The right to protest?
There seems to be a negative attitude to any dissent taken by the Czechs. (“Unions strike across country,” News, June 25–July 1). Nine-hundred thousand people officially protested and many more, I believe, sympathized with the protest.
Why aren’t journalists championing the Czechs’ historic protest?
The protest actually showed that lots of people are against the new policies proposed by the government, but have little idea of what to do about it. The union leaders, in typical UK union fashion, want to control any protest and sit down and work out a nice cozy compromise between the government and themselves.
Look at France: When the government wanted to introduce educational reforms, school kids and teachers went out to strike. This led to other workers stopping work until the government backed down.
What is needed is stronger leadership and more involvement by the membership of the unions and stronger, more meaningful protests against the government or /and employers. This will mean all-out strikes against wage cuts, closures, redundancies and economic cuts that will inevitably come in the near future.
Nick Clarke
Písařov, north Moravia
Just for show
The story “Detention raises questions of rights” (News, May 21–27) is a sad comment on the situation at several levels.
The first is that Al-Jazeera is both an Arabic and English language news channel available in the Czech Republic on cable. That means it is like CNN or Sky. Neither one of these should arouse suspicion, so why should Al-Jazeera?
Second, the police should have known this, and not spent 20 minutes investigating a paper (it’s interesting — I’ve read it) being reviewed for publication by a respected scholar with a doctorate in the field.
The authorities want to appear to be doing something. Often as not, the result is a ham-handed implementation of policy that only results in inconvenience to the public, but actually doesn’t make them any safer.
That is what Mark was subjected to. How situations like this can either reassure the public or make anyone safer is beyond my comprehension. All that was needed to resolve this was a listing of TV stations available in the Czech Republic. If those responsible for your security can’t even understand that, then don’t be so sure that they will be able to identify and handle a real security threat.
David John Muir
Kladno


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