Petr Cibulka

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Petr Cibulka
Petr Cibulka

Petr Cibulka (October 27, 1950 in Brno, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech politician, one of the instantly recognizable public personalities in today's Czech Republic.

As one of signatories of Charter 77 Cibulka was imprisoned repeatedly for various fabricated offenses and spent total of 5 years in prison before the Velvet revolution in 1989. During the Velvet revolution he was arrested and put in prison again but got released during the events, as the crowds gathered in front of the prison he was held in and demanded it.

[edit] Cibulka lists

In early 1990s he secured his place in Czech history by publishing a list of agents and collaborators of the Czechoslovak secret police StB, since then known as "Cibulka lists" ("Cibulkovy seznamy"). Until then this information was kept secret and occasionally used as a way to discredit a political opponent. The publishing was unsuccessfully opposed by those who were afraid of mob lynching or who preferred to forget this part of the past or have it forgotten. The main opponent of publication was Václav Havel - then president of the country and a friend of Cibulka. There was a very public exchange of opinions ("Vašku ty jsi prase!", "Václav, you are a pig!"), which effectively ended their friendship. The lists eventually contained tens of thousands of people with various ties to secret service. An electronic form with an easy search function was added later.

Years later, in 2003, similar though much shorter lists were published officially by the Czech government. Also the very few personal profiles kept by the StB were made public.

Several public personalities (for example actress Jiřina Bohdalová) sued the government, because they were included in the "informers files" unjustifiably - and some of them won their cases.

[edit] Other activities

Cibulka is publisher of the online political journal "UNCENSORED NEWSPAPER" [1] ("NECENZUROVANÉ NOVINY", the usage of uppercase letters is intentional and used frequently throughout his texts).

Cibulka is founder and leader of a tiny political party "The Rightist Bloc" ("Pravý blok"). The complete, official name of the party is: "Pravý Blok - strana za ODVOLATELOST poltiků, NÍZKÉ daně, MIMIMALIZACI byrokracie, SPRAVEDLIVOU justici, REFERENDA a PŘÍMOU demokracii WWW.CIBULKA.NET". The length of the name is explained as a trick to bypass the disinterest of Czech media in the party and its programme.

[edit] External links

Texts in Czech language:

Other links in English:

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