Police Chief Who Led Prague Protest Crackdown Resigns
The Prague police chief who directed the crushing of mass protests last January has resigned, the Czechoslovak government said Friday.
Spokesman Miroslav Pavel said Gen. Bohumil Csarda, 57, had left his post “in the last few days.” But Pavel denied it was related to his handling of the demonstrations, centered on the 20th anniversary of the death of a student who killed himself in protest over the Soviet-led invasion in 1968 that crushed Czechoslovakia’s reform movement.
Police used batons, dogs, tear gas and water cannon against thousands of protesters who assembled for six consecutive days in Prague’s Wenceslas Square, the most widespread political unrest in 20 years.
Disclosure of the hard-line police chief’s departure followed the early release from prison Wednesday of dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, arrested on the second day of the January demonstrations.
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