The World - News from April 12, 1988

Police in Prague broke up a meeting of about 25 current and former spokesmen of the Czechoslovak human rights group Charter 77 and briefly detained most of them, witnesses said. Both uniformed and secret police entered the home where the meeting was taking place and escorted most of the participants to several police stations for interrogation, according to several members present. They speculated that the detentions were the result of concerns by authorities in connection with the 20th anniversary of the “Prague Spring” and the invasion by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops on Aug. 21, 1968, which put an end to political reforms.