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psychopath. He is not allowed to select books of his choice from the
prison library, but is simply given one book each week. He received one
magazine but only in Rus ian and not the English version he asked for.
His letters are censored so strictly that his relatives have no idea what
work he is doing and under what conditions.
Conditions of work is one of the main topics of a recent Charter 77
report on Bory prison near Pilsen where there are two thousand
prisoners, many of them political. The report points out that the
compulsory work quota is extremely tough; for example, in 1979 only
one out of fifty teams of prisoners was able to fulfill it. Since whole
teams are responsible for the fulfillment of the quota, those who are
unable to maintain the pace are beaten up by others, as happened to
Petr Cibulka, who, as a political prisoner, receives in addition harsher
punishment for nonfulfillment. While others from his work team
received only five days of confinement to their cells after work, Cibulka
got fifteen days of solitary confinement.
The report lists frequent injuries, mainly cuts, burns, and gas
poisoning while cutting glass jewelry. Prisoners are often forced to
work when injured.
The presidential amnesty announced with such pomposity will
change nothing. The poor working conditions will remain, as will the
solitary confinements imposed on prisoners for trivial reasons-Jifi
Chmel received twenty days because he requested a visit from someone
not related to him-and the inadequate medical treatment. Above all,
the authorities clearly encourage a system which attempts to separate
political prisoners from any genuine intellectual stimuli in the hope
that before they are released they will turn into non thinking, obedient
creatures bent on sheer survival. Only docile people can be effectively
governed by the present Czech government, and those brought to
power by Soviet tanks are plainly aware of this.
