News In Brief

February 14, 1984

Polish, Czech dissidents urge freedom for prisoners

Political dissidents in Poland and Czechoslovakia have issued a joint appeal for support in their campaign to free political prisoners in the two countries, Czechoslovak emigre sources in Vienna said Monday.

The appeal was issued Sunday in Warsaw and Prague by activists of Poland's banned Solidarity trade union, members of the Polish human rights group KOR, and by signatories of Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 human rights appeal.

It was signed by 24 Poles, including Zbigniew Bujak, chairman of Solidarity's clandestine national coordinating committee, and by 22 Czechoslovaks, including playwright Vaclav Havel and former Foreign Minister Jiri Hajek.

''Our nonviolent fight for human rights is not only waged in the interest of our two countries,'' the appeal said. ''As long as it is suppressed there will be no true peace in Europe.''