An initiative of Radicals from Prague (Olga Cechurova, Ondrej Gina, Petr Horak, Jan Jarab, Emil Scuka). We hope that it will be taken over by Radical parliamentarians and that the existence of a transnational party will prove useful in this respect. We have resorted to this initiative as a last step after all our efforts to persuade the majority of our deputies have failed and the recent Parliamentary debate about the law resulted in the acceptance of a "new" version, which is basically the same as the old one.

Foreign pressure is today the only way to change this law. If it is not changed, it could be a step in the Yugoslavian direction.

PLEASE SIGN THIS APPEAL AND SEND IT TO THE CZECH PARLIAMENT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

The proposed text follows.(If necessary, it can be re-formulated.)

APPEAL TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC

We, the undersigned members of the ... Parliament, are increasingly concerned by the existence and enforcement of the current Law for Czech Citizenship.

We are aware of the fact that this law discriminates against persons of Slovak origin residing in the Czech Republic and makes it difficult - in fact, often impossible - for them to become citizens of the country in which they have lived for many years, and in which many of them were born. According to information available to us, tens of thousands of people resident in the Czech Republic may soon be left without Czech citizenship. We find especially disturbing that the majority of those afflicted will probably be members of an already disadvantaged ethnic minority, i.e. the Romanies (Gypsies).

We believe that the acceptance of such a law, which effectively disenfranchises an ethnically defined category of the voters from whom the Parliament's own legitimity is derived, puts the commitment of the Czech Republic to democratic development into serious doubt. In our opinion, this law could be viewed as a serious obstacle for the further integration of the Czech Republic into European structures.

Having the best interests of the Czech Republic in mind, we appeal to all members of the Czech Parliament to revise this law in order to make the Czech citizenship equally accessible to all citizens of the former federation residing on its territory - without retroactive criteria included in the current version.