SHORT TAKES : Czech Gets Visa to Accept Prize
Czechoslovakia will allow dissident playwright Vaclav Havel to go to Stockholm to receive the 1989 Olof Palme prize, Sweden’s Foreign Ministry said today.
“We were informed today by the Prague authorities that Havel has been granted a passport so that he can travel to Sweden to receive the prize,” ministry spokesman Bo Heineback said.
Swedish Foreign Minister Sten Andersson had been scheduled to go to Prague next Thursday to present the $15,000 prize to Havel for his struggle for human rights.
Havel and other Czechoslovak dissidents had previously always been denied passports, Heineback said, but he noted that Czechoslovakia this week decided to allow freer travel to the West.
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