|
Open letter to Vaclav Havel President Vaclav Havel Stockholm December 28, 2000 Mr. President, With astonishment the public opinion abroad learned that the publisher Michal Zitko was prosecuted for having the courage to publish Mein Kampf - one of the most important contemporary documents that laid the ideological foundation for World War 2, the occupation of your country, and the death of millions of people. Now that I hear from Radio Prague on the12 december 2000 that the publisher was given a 3-year suspended sentence and fined two million crowns for publishing the book, I wonder whether nothing has happened since Gustav Husak was in power. I am myself a publisher and I published Mein Kampf in 1992 in Sweden. After German pressure and a criminal report to the prosecutor from the Free State of Bavaria, the case ended up in the Supreme Court of Sweden in 1998, and Bavaria's claim, to have aqcuired the copyright to the book, was turned down. Meanwhile I also learned that the same book was published in the USA and in Great Britain but that the German arm was too short and their fist too weak in those countries to block the publishing. Or, as the English publisher expressed it: "We won the war." I look upon the decision by the Swedish Supreme Court as a victory for the independance of our country. The verdict in Prague disgustingly reminds me of the German demands in Sweden: Confiscation of the book and, under a penalty fine of one million Swedish Crowns, a prohibition to republish it. Those demands, however, were also turned down by the Supreme Court in Stockholm. When the American writer Noam Chomsky heard of the confiscation of Mein Kampf in Sweden, he asked: "What will happen to us if we can't even read the books of our worst enemies?" In the 1970's I worked actively in support of the democratic movement in Czechoslovakia. When I visited Prague in 1979 to form contacts with the Charta 77-movement, you, Mr. President, were in prison for your political views. I met many fighting personalities of different political persuasions. Petr Uhl, whom I met, lived underground and was on the run from the police for his political views. My committment was to support the freedom of speech and of the press in Czechoslovakia, irrespective of the different political views of the opposition. I also published the record "Leave our country alone" illegally recorded in Czechoslovakia. The tapes were smuggled back to Sweden by Swedish ice-hockey fans on their way back from the World Championship which took place in your country that year. It was the most natural thing in the world for them to take that personal risk. On my way back I also smuggled home to Sweden the Charta 77 greeting to the rally of protest held that year against the Soviet occupation arranged by Folket i Bild/Kulturfront in Sweden. Under the totalitarian Husak regime the freedom of speech was nothing but a bad joke and we shall not forget that also under that so called communist era Mein Kampf was prohibited. The political backing of Husak's power was guaranteed by the superpower of that time, the Soviet Union. I cannot help suspecting that this role now has been transferred from Moscow to Berlin. We in Sweden who have shown our solidarity and supported your struggle for freedom of speech and of the press in Czechoslovakia are ashamed that these values today in Czechia are treated the same way as under the previous regime. I therefore protest against the unfair treatment of publisher Michal Zitko. I hope his appeal against the verdict will render him justice and that the freedom of speech and of the press will be re-established in Czechia. Publisher Michal Zitko and myself are in very good company as we work for the distribution of Mein Kampf in order to reveal the nazi ideology: Albert Einstein took part in the same activity already in 1939 in the USA as the book was published by the Reynal Hitchcock publishing compan in their fight against nazism. Respectfully |
|
|
 |
||