Karel Šírek

“I was there as a witness, but they didn’t even tell me that, they didn’t tell me that till afterwards because if charges were brought against someone, they usually ended up convicted. But they didn’t tell me that, they said that they had a request for custody there, and I didn’t if they did or didn’t, so it was just a game. They told several times they had the request, they even showed it to me, saying it was a custody request and that it was only up to me if they’d sign now or a bit later, that they were searching my house that very minute. They weren’t, but they did search my friend’s house, and they confiscated absolutely everything, and I didn’t see him again until eighteen months later, and in the statement he read all the people who had testified. You didn’t know [if it was true - trans.] while they were holding you there.”

“The last time I was arrested was on 31 October ’89; nowadays people say it was all clear [about the upcoming revolution - trans.] by then, but I was interrogated for twelve hours, and I had no sense of clarity at all. So it wasn’t - it was more just a fluke... We didn’t think of what we did as being against the state, we didn’t really fight the system, we couldn’t give tuppence about the system. We wanted the system to give us a break so we could do what we wanted to.”