Bedřich Koutný

“At that time, the State Security made plans with the Czechoslovak Television to uncover an anti-state center in Zlín. They would record it all and make a deterring example of it for the youth throughout the country. We were naturally ready for it because at least a month earlier they pulled off surveillance officials from the whole country. There were some thirty active dissidents in Zlín – people who participated in samizdat, who were politically involved, including Czech-Polish solidarity. We collaborated with the Poles in information exchange. A lot of people brought our samizdat to out Polish friends and returned with information on what was going on in their country. In 1985 this monstrous crackdown was being prepared. Each of us around twenty-five people were followed by three vehicles with three people in each.”

“So three secret policemen picked us up and drove us to the town hall, to the municipality in Zlín. There, an authorized clerk handed it over to us officially – that based on a decision of Prague’s municipal authority the assembly was forbidden, that we had thus been informed about it and about the consequences in case we would not respect it… Naturally, we went to Prague. They let us in that one time. We had a meeting in the apartment of film director Andrej Krob who lived just above Wenceslas Square. All of the activists have met there. We were looking out of the window and saw all those police vans, one next to another. At the agreed time we came out with flowers, to lay them next to St. Wenceslas. Naturally, as we were arriving, they arrested us like sheep, one after another. They drove us around police stations and I got lucky. I was detained at Vinohrady, there were fifteen of us in a cell for two and they were great company…”