Witnesses to Charter 77: Miroslav Lehký

“Today’s political situation in Slovakia is in some respects similar to conditions during so-called normalisation. People are punished for critical opinions, the rule of law is trampled underfoot...,” says one-time dissident Miroslav Lehký. 

Lehký was born in May 1947 in Brno, but grew up in and lived in Bratislava. He began studying theology in 1968 but was forced to leave due to political interference. He made a living as a programmer, was active in publishing samizdat and organising the underground university and signed Charter 77 (from January 1990 he was one of its spokespersons). After the revolution he worked at the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, co-founded Slovakia’s Nation’s Memory Institute and worked at the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.