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Current AffairsFormer StB observation post in Malá Strana bell tower opens to public
Prague has just seen the opening of a new and rather unusual tourist
attraction – a former secret police observation post recently discovered
at the top of a bell tower in one of the city’s gothic churches. For just
under four decades – from the 1950s to the 1980s – the tower was home
to a detachment of communist secret policemen who’d spy on the foreign
embassies below. Rob Cameron climbed to the top to have a look.
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Current Affairs20 years ago officials disbanded notorious Communist-era secret police
Exactly 20 years have passed since officials in Czechoslovakia disbanded
the notorious Communist-era secret police the StB. The order came on
January 31, 1990 from then interior minister Richard Sacher; within 15
days
some 13,000 StB officers had handed in their weapons and their badges. More
Czech BooksBarbara Day and the Velvet Philosophers
Barbara Day works for a non-profit organization called The Prague Society,
promoting international links in business, politics and academia.
Twenty-five years ago, Barbara was doing a job that, at least on the
surface, seems very similar. Then based in London, she was coordinating
visits by Western academics to Czechoslovakia. But times could hardly have
been more different. In those days, such initiatives were seen by the
communist regime as a subversive activity. Constantly harangued by
Czechoslovakia’s secret police – the StB – visiting lecturers,
including some of the world’s most renowned philosophers, would meet
secretly at private flats. In what came to be known as the “underground
seminars” they would address small groups made up of students, dissidents
and anyone else brave enough to turn up, and lectures covered subjects as
varied as the philosophy of Plato and the music of Mahler. Barbara Day’s
book, The Velvet Philosophers, recounts the details of how the seminars
worked. When I met Barbara, she began by telling me how the seminars
started: It was in the years just after the 1968 Soviet invasion, when many
of Czechoslovakia’s top academics were thrown out of their jobs, and even
their children found themselves in trouble.
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Current AffairsInstitute director Pavel Žáček: petition against me “like voice from the past”
The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes is under pressure this
week after a petition was circulated calling for the dismissal of the
Institute’s director, Pavel Žáček. Such petitions are not uncommon in
the Czech Republic and this one – circulated by former dissident
Stanislav Penc – might have gone more or less unnoticed had it not been
signed by ex-president Václav Havel.
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From the ArchivesCzechoslovakia in 1991: What to do with former secret police collaborators?
One of the most passionate debates in Czechoslovakia in the first years
after the fall of communism was over what to do with people who had
collaborated with the secret police – the StB – or had held prominent
functions in the Communist Party. In 1991 the so-called “screening law”
was passed, under which former StB collaborators were prevented from
holding certain senior posts – for example in academia or in the civil
service. At the time Radio Prague invited two Czech politicians into the
studio: the left-of-centre member of the Federal Parliament, Jan Kavan, and
the leader of the small right-wing Conservative Party, Jiří Kotas. Here
is an extract from the debate, starting with Jiří Kotas, who was strongly
in favour of the law:
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Current AffairsHistory of British secret service uncovers Czechoslovak infiltration success
An official history of the British counter intelligence and security
service MI5 has come up with some revelations about the work of the
Communist Czechoslovak secret police. One of them is how it recruited
agents among British Labour Party MPs. One of its biggest catches was a
colourful and ambitious junior minister.
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