Russian embassy in Prague calls Czech reaction to events in Moscow “biased”

The Russian embassy in Prague has criticized the reaction of the Czech Foreign Ministry to the weekend police crack-down against demonstrators in Moscow.

On its Facebook page, the embassy called on Czech officials to refrain from adopting a "selective and biased" stand to human rights issues, noting that Prague showed no such concern with regard to crack-downs on demonstrations in the US, Great Britain or France.

The Czech Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that it was concerned by the mass arrests of peaceful protesters in Moscow and urged the Russian authorities to respect fundamental human rights.

Riot police in the Russian capital arrested some 600 people on Saturday in an attempt to suppress a protest rally that had been banned by authorities. It was the latest in a series of protests, triggered by a refusal to let opposition candidates stand in Russia’s parliamentary elections.