Charter 77

[4] Although Václav Havel, Ludvík Vaculík, and Pavel Landovský were detained while trying to bring the charter to the Federal Assembly and the Czechoslovak government, and the original document was confiscated,[5] copies circulated as samizdat and on 7 January were published in several western newspapers, including Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and The Times, and transmitted within Czechoslovakia by Czechoslovak-banned radio broadcasters like Radio Free Europe and Voice of America.

[6] Charter 77 criticized the government for failing to implement the human rights provisions of a number of documents it had signed, including the 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia, the Final Act of the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Basket III of the Helsinki Accords), and the 1966 United Nations covenants on political, civil, economic, and cultural rights.

The official press described the manifesto as "an anti-state, anti-socialist, and demagogic, abusive piece of writing",[9] and individual signatories were variously described as "traitors and renegades", "a loyal servant and agent of imperialism", "a bankrupt politician", and "an international adventurer".

[citation needed] Several means of retaliation were used against the signatories, including dismissal from work, denial of educational opportunities for their children, forced exile, loss of citizenship, and detention, trial, and imprisonment.

[12] In the late 1980s, as the Eastern Bloc Revolutions of 1989 gathered momentum, members of Charter 77 saw their opportunity and became more involved in organizing opposition against the ruling authority.

Many were elevated into high positions in the government (e.g., Václav Havel became the President of Czechoslovakia) but since most had no experience in active politics (such as skills in diplomacy or knowledge of capitalism), they met with mixed success.

An attempt to make the group the focal point of an all-encompassing political party (the Civic Forum) failed and in 1992, the initiative dissolved.