WORLD : Czech Dissident Rejects Visa

Leading Czechoslovak dissident Vaclav Havel said today he had been offered a passport to travel to Sweden to accept an award but had declined because of the situation in his country.

Havel, an internationally known playwright, told a news conference in Prague: “I will not make use of the passport because the situation at home is becoming dramatic. I do not want to serve as a front for this regime, which would claim they let a leading dissident travel abroad, and thus try to mask the drastic repressions we are witnessing.”