Bärbel Bohley

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bärbel Bohley (born 24 May 1945) was an East German opposition figure and artist. In 1983 she was expelled from the GDR artists federation (VBK) and was banned from travelling abroad or exhibiting her work in East Germany. She was accused of having contacts to the West German Green Party.

In 1985 she was one of the co-founders of the Initiative for Peace and Human Rights. In 1988 she was arrested during a demonstration and was given a six month visa to the United Kingdom. She later returned to East Germany. In 1989 she was one of founders of New Forum.

After the unification of Germany in 1990 she was involved in several court trials because she publicly proclaimed Gregor Gysi to have been a Stasi informer, and actually spent several days in prison because she would not take the statement back publicly or pay a fine.

One of her later projects was a group help project near Sarajevo, where she put great effort into building homes in order to enable refugees to return after the armed conflicts in Bosnia-Hercegovina.