Ivan Dejmal za mřížemi
Ivan Dejmal behind the bars

Summary/Abstract: Ivan Dejmal spent four years behind the bars of Czechoslovak prisons. He was condemned on fabricated charges of „subversion of the republic“, to be jailed in 1970-1972 and later again in 1974-1976. The latter sentence came as a „punishment“ for Dejmal’s activity in students‘ movement. As a political prisoner, Dejmal was exposed to chicane, carefully watched and continuously punished, e.g., for „sleeping after the waking-up time“. He stayed in a number of prisons, with his jailers agreeing that the „service of the term of imprisonment failed to fulfil its reformatory function“, which in other words means that Dejmal refused to give up his opinions. In spite of all injustice and chicane, Dejmal left the prison unbroken. On the contrary, he immediately joined the activity of the opposition and stood at the birth of the Charter 77 human rights manifesto and movement in January 1977.

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