Police detain Tibetans wanting to illegally enter Austria

Mikulov, South Moravia, Feb 8 (CTK) - The Czech police detained three women from Tibet who wanted to illegally travel from Poland via the Czech Republic to Austria last week, foreigner police spokesman Roman Pittner told CTK Monday.

They claimed they want to join their relatives in the celebrations of the forthcoming Buddhist New Year falling on Sunday, Pittner said.

He added the Tibetans have been the first foreigners detained in south Moravia this year.

The women were transported by two Polish citizens in their car. The Tibetans with Indian documents had a residence permit in Poland which, however, does not allow them to travel all over the European Union.

The foreigners were detained in a random check. The investigation showed that the three Tibetan women had return tickets to India.

Each of them was fined with 500 crowns for an illegal stay in the Czech Republic and returned to Poland.

Pittner said the women may have been refugees.

"We registered in the past cases where illegal immigrants had return air tickets to their homeland even though they were not going to return to it," he added.

Last year the police detained in south Moravia one third more refugees than in 2008, or 575 people. The biggest numbers of them were Chechens and Georgians who illegally left refugee centres in Poland and attempted to travel to Austria, Germany and Italy via the Czech Republic.