Otta Bednářová (née Šmirousová; 18 June 1927 – 5 September 2023) was a Czech journalist, writer, screenwriter, television producer and dissident during Czechoslovakia's communist era.
[2]< She co-created the investigative television show, Zvědavá kamera ("Curious Camera"), and also served as the editor and screenwriter.
[1] In 1968, her show, Curious Camera, was cancelled and its editors dismissed following the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia.
[1] In 1978, Bednářová joined with sixteen other Charter 77 signatories to create the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS).
[1] Bednářová and her colleagues founded VONS to defend Czechoslovakian citizens who were arrested or persecuted for their political and personal beliefs.
[1] Although the march had been permitted by authorities, it was violently dispersed by public security forces, starting the Velvet Revolution.
[1] Following the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism, Bednářová worked in the Committee of Good Will [cs] of Olga Havlová.
[2][3] President Václav Havel awarded her the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, class III, for services to democracy and human rights in October 1997.