Prague, Dec 29 (CTK) – The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR) will open an exhibition abroad and start a campaign on the Twitter to mark the 40th anniversary of the Czech Charter 77 dissident manifesto, USTR deputy chairman Ondrej Matejka told journalists on Thursday.
Cooperating with Czech Centres and the Foreign Ministry, the USTR will highlight the importance of the Charter 77 in March, Matejka.
Before it, it wants to stage an exhibition of some prominent faces of the Charter 77 and to install a small monument in the place where former president Vaclav Havel and actor Pavel Landovsky had a car chase with the Communist StB secret service.
Abroad, the USTR wants to introduce the foreign political importance of Charter 77.
“We want to show how the Charter functioned abroad and what were its contacts, such as the Polish Solidarity, as well as the impact of some documents abroad such as the Prague Appeal that spoke for the first time about Germany’s reunification as a certain precondition of a new arrangement in Europe,” Matejka said.
The exhibition will also be presented within the Czech presidency of the Council of Europe, to last between next May and November.
The USTR will also try to launch a campaign on the Twitter, where it will open its own account.
A large outdoor exhibition on Charter 77 most important spokespeople will be be opened between January 6 and 26.
The 40th anniversary of Charter 77 will be celebrated by its signatories and other dissidents.
A remembrance evening will be held in Prague on January 7, director of the NGO Post Bellum Mikulas Kroupa has told journalists.
The first, preparatory meeting of the dissident meeting was held on December 10, 1976. The posts of Charter 77 spokespeople were at first held by former foreign minister Jiri Hajek, playwright Vaclav Havel and philosopher Jan Patocka.
It was signed by 242 people by the end of 1976. By January 1990, Charter 77 was signed by over 1800 people, while only 25 of them withdrew their signatures publicly.
