Misov - Czech military officers have started transferring the Greenpeace activists who have blocked the planned U.S. radar site in the military district Brdy for six weeks, away from the spot height 718, activist Jan Pinos said.

Neither the military police nor the Defence Ministry spokespersons have been available for comment.

Pinos said the activists knew beforehand that the military was planning something as a bigger than unusual number of military vehicles appeared in the area this morning.

A week ago, the protesters declared Peaceland, a "state" of their own, at the spot height 718 where the USA wants to install a radar base, part of its missile defence shield.

Weapons are banned in Peaceland, and if military police appeared there, the activists would refuse to produce their ID cards, they said a few days ago.

The police reacted saying they are empowered to bring such people to a police station to identify them.

While the police daily checked the protesters' identity in the previous weeks, they did not do so a single time last week. It is only today that a large number of officers appeared in the Greenpeace camp and requested ID cards, Pinos said.

"They surrounded us, afterwards they entered the camp asking us to produce our personal documents. We refused to do so on Peaceland's soil," Pinos said.

"Now I can only speak on my behalf. I haven't seen the others. They dragged me to a car and they are transferring us away," Pinos said.

The U.S. radar project is opposed by two-thirds of Czechs and the political opposition.

The centre-right government has completed its talks with the USA on the main radar treaty and it is reportedly close to completing negotiations on the complementary SOFA treaty, dealing with U.S. soldiers' status on Czech territory.
The treaties will be signed in July at the latest, Czech Deputy PM Alexandr Vondra said a few weeks ago.


Source (Czech): Czech Press Agency