OVER 600 CZECHS FAIL IN ATTEMPT TO LEAVE COUNTRY

Grey River Argus, 5 April 1948, Page 3

OVER 600 CZECHS FAIL IN ATTEMPT TO LEAVE COUNTRY

| N.Z.P.A.—Reuter Cable]. (Rec. 10.30) ' PRAGUB, April 4

U has now been ofnciaiiy announced that irontier Czech police detained six hundred and forty-two people, when they were attempting to leave the country during February, the crisis montn.

It is also announced that the police also proceed during February against two Hundred and seventy-six people for “attempting to violate the republic’s security.” The President of Czechoslovakia (Dr Benes), in reeciving a new Russian Ambassador (M. Michael Silin), in the presence of the Czech Foreign Minister (Mr Clements) said: “This is the moment to stress the importance of our alliance, wnich is a natural expression of the friendship uniting brethren nations. Both nations are filled with a deep, sincere will to preserve and, if possible, strengthen permanent peace. We desire only to be able to care for thg happy life of our nations. We want to guard this common peace programme, especially against the danger of new German aggressiveness.”'

M. Silin said: “Our nations never shall forget the danger of German aggression. Both have a deep, sincere desire to strengthen per.tanent and over-all peace, because they devote now their main forces to the task of economic reconstruction and raising the living standard of the masses.”

It was Dr Benes’s first public utterance since the Communists gained control in Czechoslovakia.

GENEVA, April 3 The British delegate to the United Nations’ Freedom of the Press Conference, Mr Murray Watson, read to a conference committee . a British Foreign Office report, stating that all news from foreign sources to Czechoslovakia now passed through the official Czech press agency, which suppressed material it thought unfavourable to Czechoslovakia.

The report added that the agency frequently “doctored” the news from western agencies and published it as from another source.

The political head of the agency’s and published it as from another source.

The political head of the agency’s news department, whose presence had long been a guarantee of fair news distribution, has been replaced 1/ a Communist chief. The editors of five Prague dailies have also been removed.