CZECHOSLOVAKIA
the area. There were guard towers at each corner of the wall, with guards constantly on the watch. We could hear a loud noise from behind the walls. It was a pack of police dogs. They were chasing up and down in a runway that circles the wall on the inside.
Petr Uhl - the protests helped IV CORRESPONDENTS PRAGUE - The many protests seem to have had some effect. One of Czechoslovakia's best known political prisoners, Peter Uhl, has been moved out of the illfamed Mirov prison and transferred to a better one outside Prague. told us this two weeks ago when we visited her in Prague.
In Mirov, which is in northern Bohemia, hundreds of kilometers from Prague, Petr Uhl's situation had become quite critical. He was very sick. The prison is a castle that dates from the thirteenth century, and for all this time it has been used to hold dissident elements. It is notorious as one of the worst prisons in the country.
Anna Sabatova could get permission to visit Petr Uhi only every six months -for one hour. The last time she visited him was in May this year. After seeing • him, she was very worried.
Petr's face was swollen, and he seemed difficult to concentrate.
behalf in many countries. Organizations such as Amnesty International have also participated in these campaigns.
In the big international peace conference in Prague this summer, many delegates - to the great distress of their Czechoslovak hosts - pressed for Petr Uhl to be allowed to attend. Resolutions were read, moreover, demanding the release of the political prisoners.
It was shortly after this conference that Petr Uhl was moved. When Anna Sabotova went to the authorities to complain about the poor state of her husband's health, she got nowhere. The last time she complained she went together with her father, Vaclav Sabata, who himself spent six years in prison for being spokesman of Charter 77.
Petr was transferred because the regime is sensitive to criticism from the West, especially as regards political prisoners, Anna Sabatova said.
Now it only takes an hour's bus ride to get to Petr's prison. So why not go out there? We went out with Anna Sabatova. She had not yet had a chance to go.
The prison itself consisted mainly of about ten low one- or two-story buildings. They looked like small workshops Most of the buildings also had fences around them. In the middle, a big fourstory building towered over the rest.
"Petr's cell is in that building, on the second floor," Anna Sabatova said.
We went along the railway embankment a little way along the wall. We wanted to take pictures of the prison. That is not allowed. But we managed to do it by putting the camera in the bottom of a bag. The guard got very edgy about having us walk around. He yelled some thing we turned quickly around and went back to Kladno to take the bus back to Prague. take the same bus ride into Prague, if he is released from prison on time. even then he will not be quits with the authorities. He will have to pay them money. They are not satisfied with just jailing you, they make you pay for the room and board for all the time you are held under indictment. For Petr Uhl, that was nineteen months.
A large part of the wage he earned in prison went to pay that debt. When he gets out, he will still have a lot to pay. Besides that, he still owes money for his first stay behind bars.
For Anna Sabatova, the situation is
In order to break Petr both psychologic- In the bus we traveled through the big the same. At the beginning of the 1970s. ally and physically, they had him grind In a she served two years in prison. She is still hard, brittle plastic in a room without when he already suffered cell with five other prisoners, all of them were loyal to the regime, and who constantly tried to provoke Petr, Anna Saba-
In 1979, Petr Uhl was imprisoned along with five others, including the well-known writer Vaclav Havel. He was sentenced to five years in prison for his activity in the Committee to Defend the Unjustly Accused, VONS.
The others have now been released. Petr is still being held. He got the most severe sentence, on the pretext that he was a second offender.
Uhl was imprisoned the first time for opposing the Soviet invasion in 1968. He was active in the resistance, the widespread strikes and university occupations. Later he was one of the founders and leaders of Charter 77, the movement for human rights in Czechoslovakia.
countries, a lot of workers organizations have campaigned for the release of the political prisoners in Czechoslovakia or at least to see that they got better conditions in prison.
In the nearly four and a half years that Petr Uhl has been in prison, a number of campaigns have been waged on his coal-mining area north of Prague. small town, Kladno, we got off. The last few kilometers we had to walk down into a valley. We passed a coal mine, and then we could see to the left the prison walls that are supposed to "protect" Czechoslovak people from "anti-social elements." The wall was 2.5 meters high, with barbed wire on the top.
Keeping a good distance • away, walked along the wall. came up to the prison, right up against
We walked along a railway embankment, from which we could see most of The prison where Petr Uhl is now held (DR)
paying her room and board for that stay in the government's hotel.
Petr has now gotten better conditions For example, he can study English in his free time. He could not do that in Mirov, Anna Sabatova explained.
"There are more and more political prisoners in Czechoslvakia," Anna Sabatova continued. "So, it is important that all progressive forces in the West protest against the jailing of people who are politagainst the conditions under which they are held
"Now you can see that protesting has an effect," she concluded.
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