THE ARREST and charging of ten members Charter 77 civil rights movement is the most serious case of repression seen in Czechoslovakia since 1971.
Charter THOULU editor Petr Uhl faces a sentence of between three and ten charge ot subversion on a scale'; the others could be jailed for one to five years on lesser subversion charges.
Many of those arrested are among the most longstanding and consistent fighters for democratic Czechoslovakia, as is shown by their biographies printed below. All ten are members of the Committee to Detend Those Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS). BEDNAROVA Otka: Born in 1927, she ioined the Communist Partv in 1945 and was expelled in 1970. During the '60s she was one of the best known female TV journalists in Czechoslovakia; before 1963 she Radio Prague. In the mid '60s she lost her job for one year because of one programme; 1968 she expelled from her job in TV.
She then worked as a cleaning woman and ladies attendant; her health and she suffered hepatitis and disordered pancreas. In 1970, while working woman, a blood vessel burst in her brain; she became a semi-invalid and has been treated for the last five years for metro-rhagia.
Since 1973 she invalid's pension; it was withdrawn in 1978 and when she protested a court backed the withdrawal. years now she has been subjected to continuous harassment in the form of interrogations, detentions, and house searches, and in December 1978 she was physically attacked on the street. subsequent of the Defence Fund bulletin years on a large rights her political subsequently woman and as a manual prominent sacked of Czechoslovakia. worked for Copyright: Plastic People Defence Fund was cloakroom was damaged chronic as a cleaning received an For three by friends Convright: Plastic Peonle Defencé Fund BELIKOVA Jarmila: Born in 1948, lost her job as a social worker because opinions. She worked as a cleaning worker without permanent employment.
DIENSTBIER Jiri: One of the. most JournalIsts working for Radio Prague in 1968. He was later an official correspondent in being expelled Communist Party and job because opposition to the 'Husak normalisation' that followed the Soviet invasion He was interrogated during the 1971-2 trials of leading communists given and socialists but was not jailed. He became spokesperson of Charter 77 in February 1979. He has one child. of Havel BENDA Vaclay: Born in 1946, a Party. mathematician and philosopher and a prominent Czech Catholic. Described as a *revolutionary democrat', he was working as a driver before his arrest while being both the Secretary of VONS and an spokesperson of Charter 77. He has five children.
HAVEL Vaclav: One of Czechoslevakia's most famous playwrights, he was a prominent intellectual figure the sighatories esprite id Point signatories Manifesto of August 1969, the public manifesto against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
moving spirit creation of Charter 77, arrested very soon aiter appearance while being one of the three founding spokespersons of the moyemen, In october 1yri ne was 18-month suspended sentence.
During the months after the arrest Jaroslav Sabata acted temporary spokesperson again, despite under virtual house arrest. He is a leading theorist within the Charter 77 LIS Ladislav: Born in 1926, a skilled worker in the engineering industry, he was one of the Prague uprising in May 1945 and subsequently joined the Communist Party. He became a member of the workers' council in the famous CKD engineering works in Prague and in 1949 became General Secretary of the Union of Czechoslovak Youth as well Vice-President Federation of Democratic Youth.
After conflict with party leader Novotny in the early 1950s he was removed from these posts and became an instructor within the Communist But in 1961 he was expelled from the party for struggling for the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinist terror in the early 1950s.
In 1968 he rehabilitated, became a secretary of the Prague City official Committee of the Communist Party, and was a central organiser of the Vysocany Congress of the party held in clandestinity just after the Soviet party in 1969, he became a manual worker in the forest timber industry. Twice invalid's pension withdrawn after he joined Charter 77. children.
MALY Vaclay: clergyman from Plzen. Otherwise as yet nothing is known about him.
Copyright: Plastic People Defence Fund Point the was NEMCOVA Dana: A psychologist, she has played organising the Czechoslovak cultural underground. She has seven children.
Fund being the NEMEC Jiri: contributor to the literary periodical Tvar in the 1960s, 1932. Among his political activities he helped to organise the underground university, and signed with others a the statement of solidarity with victims of the Berufsverbot in West Germany in 1978. He has seven children. expelled from the This He has two Christian founding the organised and workers four years.
and theoretical leading role wife, VONS.
AN socialist Foundation, Britain, and many others.
psychologist and , he was born Committee).
UHL Petr: Born in 1941, a qualified engineer, Uhl became a Marxist while at college in Prague in the early 1960s, and after his experience in the French Communist Party's student organi.
revolutionary Marxist, sympathetic towards, but never a member of, the Hourth International In 1968 he played a key part in Revolutionary Youth Movement, which was one of the first movements of the opponents of the Soviet invasion. The movement sought to carry out political propaganda among youth , and for his involvement in this work Ühl was jailed in 1969 for An important organiser within the Charter movement, he has been editor of the Charter Information Bulletin figured prominently in the discussions within Charter. He has two children and his Anna Sabatova, former • prisonely is a member of appeal for the release of the ten Chartists has already been sponsored by a wide range of individuals and organisations, including the following: Jiri Pelikan, the Bertrand Russell Peace First May Committee in Brussels, the Bahro Delence commillces in Berlin and Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, the Sozialistisches Osteuropakomitee in Berlin, Palach Press, the Eastern Europe Solidarity Campaign, In Britain the defence activity is being coordinated by the Charter Defence Committee, c/o Ruth Tosek, 14 Elgin Court, 16 Montpelier Road, London W5. They are asking for the largest number of labour movement protest messages to be sent to the Czechoslovak Embassy, 25 Kensing ton Palace Gardens, London W8 copies LU the Defence Messages of solidarity can also be sent to: Anna Sabatova, Anglicka 8, Prague 2, Czechosloyakia. socialism, opening the paper and saying look at this article, this is why we think the banks should be nationalised, this is why we think that the present way of organising the army is bad and why the officers should be elected.' "There is a rumour that our party has 4,000 cadres in Ahwaz and 20,000 supporters. The reason is that people cannot believe that a small people can up under this They don't know that the force behind our aggressiveness is our confidence I the oppressed Arab population has taken note of the HKS's defence 'Our work with the Arabs is very important', Shahrabi said. "They are the real militants. We want to build a party branch here that has a majority of Arab workers as members. Till now they have been suspicious of all parties. But they say they like us because we 'To give you some idea of the spirit of these we have just recruited one who had a house left him by his father. It was all he had. He came to the conclusion that be should sell it and give the money to the party. He told us: "I have found my house, it is the Socialist Workers Party. I don't need anotber one." That is the sort of thing that encourages Socialist Challenge 28 June, 1979 , Fage. 11
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