The former Czech president, Vaclav Havel, and about 100 other international figures have signed a petition accusing President Vladimir Putin of Russia of using the Beslan hostage drama to undermine democracy

The petition was sent to the leaders of all countries in the European Union and NATO, Havel's office said. The signers expressed solidarity with Russia's people in their fight against terrorism and condemned the recent seizure of a school in the southern Russian town of Beslan in which more than 330 hostages were killed, nearly half of them children. "At the same time," they said, "we are deeply concerned that these tragic events are being used to further undermine democracy in Russia." The letter containing the petition was published by leading Czech newspapers and made available to reporters Wednesday. Signers included two U.S. senators, John McCain, a Republican, and Joseph Biden Jr, a Democrat; a former CIA chief, James Woolsey; former Prime Minister Carl Bildt of Sweden; and a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke. While noting that "Russia's democratic institutions have always been weak and fragile," the letter accuses Putin of making them even weaker since he became president of Russia in January 2000. It also charges that Russia's foreign policy under Putin has been marked by "a threatening attitude toward Russia's neighbors," with "the rhetoric of militarism and empire." "The leaders of the West must recognize that our current strategy toward Russia is failing," it said. "We must speak the truth about what is happening in Russia. We owe it to the victims of Beslan and the tens of thousands of Russian democrats who are still fighting to preserve democracy and human freedom in their country." Putin's four-year administration has been marked by steady economic growth supported by high oil prices. But his critics say that growth has come at a cost, with increasingly circumscribed domestic media and a judiciary and a Parliament that do the Kremlin's bidding.