The Czech Republic's Senate deputy chairman Jan Ruml...

The Czech Republic's Senate deputy chairman Jan Ruml (Freedom Union) expressed his protest against the detention of the Chinese religious movement Falun Gong adherents to the Chinese Ambassador in Prague, Ruml's aide Jan Holub told CTK.
Ruml said he considered the ambassador's reaction, according to which the detainees breached Chinese law and Falun Gong was a heretic sect, a "tragic comedy evidence" of an unchanged perception of human rights in China.
Ruml is also a deputy chairman of an international committee whose aim is to help improve human rights observance in China before the summer Olympics to be held in Beijing in 2008.
In mid-December 2001, six people were sentenced to nine to 12 years in prison for spreading Falun Gong materials. Five members of one of the protesting sects were even sentenced to death in December. Ruml had no information whether his protest could change court verdict in the case of the five members of Falun Gong. However, it is still necessary to demonstrate disapproval with breaching human rights in China, Ruml said.
Ruml's protest has so far been, according to the committee's web site at www.olympicwatch.org its only visible activity in the past three months since its foundation. The 13-member committee intends to monitor the condition of human rights in China, so that the Olympics could be held in a "free and democratic country".