Jiří Hájek

Jiří Hájek ( born June 6, 1913 in Krhanice at Benešov, Austria - Hungary, † 22 October 1993 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak politician of the Communist Party (CCP), later dissident and spokesman of Charter 77

Biography

Hájek joined as a young man the youth organization of the Social Democratic Party ( CSSD ) at the same time and was also the organizer of an anti-fascist group. These activities meant that he was arrested in 1939 and was located during the Second World War in German internment camps.

After the Second World War he was in 1945 elected as a candidate for the CSSD deputies to the National Assembly. After the merger, the CSSD with the KSČ 1948 he remained until 1958 Member of the National Assembly.

After working as a lecturer at the School of Politics and Economics in 1953, he was appointed Professor of International Relations at the Charles University. He was subsequently 1955-1958 first ambassador to Britain before he was afterwards to 1962 Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 1962 to 1965 he was Permanent Representative of Czechoslovakia to the United Nations (UN ) in New York. From 1965 to April 1968 he was Minister of Education in the government of Prime Minister Jozef Lenárt.

In 1968 he was one of the supporters of the new Secretary General of the KSČ, Alexander Dubček, initiated the reform path of the Prague Spring. Under Lenart 's successor as Prime Minister, Oldrich Černík, he was appointed on 8 April 1968 Foreign Minister. During the invasion of Soviet Army units in Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring in August 1968 he was on vacation in Yugoslavia. During these events, he traveled in his capacity as Secretary of the UN and there denounced the invasion of Soviet troops on, leaning on the other hand, however, interference from Western Europe. After his return to Czechoslovakia on September 19, 1968, he was forced to resign from his post as foreign minister.

As part of a political purge within the KSČ 1970 he was expelled from the party. 1977 Hájek was one of the first signatories of Charter 77, a published in the January 1977 petition against the human rights abuses of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. At the same time he was next to Vaclav Havel and Jan Patocka one of the leading spokesman of the resulting from the Charter 77 opposition movement. In 1988, he finally founded the Czechoslovak Helsinki Committee, a group to monitor the observance of human rights in Czechoslovakia.

Awards

For his contributions to the human rights Hájek has won several awards:

• Thorolf Rafto Memorial Prize, First Prize Winner 1987
• Knight of the French Legion of Honor ( Légion d' honneur ), 1993.