PREMYSL DVORAK
601
tions are worse than those for thieves and murderers. If a political prisoner
does not fulfill his norm-that is, his waking hours do not suffice for fulfilling
the daily task-he does not receive any pocket money. This is a hard punish–
ment because it means he cannot purchase at the prison canteen the vitamins
which prison food lacks. He grows physically weaker and his output declines.
He is allowed to receive a parcel from home four times a year during the visits.
It
may not weigh more than five pounds and usually holds only enough onions
and garlic
to
keep him in vitamins for the three intervening months.
Members of prisoners' families are kept under surveillance . Sympathy
towards prisoners' families, or financial assistance to a family deprived of the
main breadwinner, is classified as "approving a penal act," and the sympa–
thizer can be prosecuted . Lawyers who defend political prisoners are restricted
in their own civil rights; they are not permitted to travel abroad on the ground
that they have' 'come in contact with State secrets and could betray them ."
It
seems our prison system does not threaten the life of the prisoner ;
" only" his health, both physical and mental, and his honor are affected . But
there is no guarantee that there will not be a turn for the worse . An anti–
democratic, uncontrollable system gives no guarantee that the worst may not
happen, simply as the result of private initiative by an "organ." A recent
report is a tragic warning: onJuly 17 [1974] Mr. Kosinka of Nove Mesto in
Moravia, a priest of the Czechoslovak church of Jan Hus, died after several
weeks in custody . The reason for his arrest is not known . We only know that he
criticized state oppression of the church . The autopsy revealed several injuries
and gave as the direct cause of death a broken neck. The report added an
unusual postscript: death was caused by a fall downstairs .
We
s~all
probably never know the ttuth . And who knows whether there
will not be further cases? We live in a society deprived of legal security.
Methods of treating citizens and prisoners are not determined by law but by
seasonal trends, according to the international situation , according to Mos–
cow's wishes, according to changing insttuctions from above . Instructions are
given and batons are wielded; different insttuctions are given and a tough
opponent, if he is well known , is "only" driven into exile .
This brings us
to
the system's weak spot .
It
fears a scandal abroad. People
who are well known in the free world, who are talked about abroad, enjoy
relative immunity. The leading politicians of the Prague Spring of 1968 are
not in prison, they are only isolated from the rest of the population and are
libeled and insulted. But hundreds of other citizens, less known or unknown,
are imprisoned . This is a further proof that our leaders are not interested in
justice, in however distorted a form, but only in maintaining their positions of
power. They do not dare to touch the great among their opponents, but take
their revenge on the humble, because the world does not know about the
