Czech Govt jails jazz club leaders

Press, 20 October 1986, Page 24

Czech Govt jails jazz club leaders

How did an unofficial club for Czechoslovak jazz musicians become so offensive to the authorities that its leaders were thrown in jail? DAVID STOREY reports for Reuters from Prague.

Seven Czechoslovaks who . defied the cultural monopoly of the Communist Party could become key figures at next month’s European security conference in Vienna.

The seven leaders of the Jazz Section, an unofficial forum for young people opposed to the politically motivated cultural restrictions of the authorities, will not be in Vienna.

They are in Ruzyne prison in Prague. But their case is high on the list of human-rights issues to be raised by the West at the session of the 35-State Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (C.S.C.E.). The seven have been kept in virtual isolation since they were arrested at their homes on September 2, forbidden visits by lawyers or family. They are being investigated for illegally engaging in commercial activity, which could bring them sentences of up to eight years in prison.

The Government realises the topic will come up when implementation of human-rights accords is discussed in Vienna, but spokesmen insist it is a criminal, not cultural, affair.

Mr Miroslav Krejci, a Culture Ministry department director, said the seven were acting as an opposition and engaging in private business. "The things they did were not contrary to cultural policy but to the laws of Czechoslovakia,” he said. Harassment of the Jazz Section was already an issue at a C.S.C.E. meeting in Budapest a year ago, and two members of the American delegation to the C.S.C.E. visited Prague to research the case this month. Senior Czechoslovak officials acknowledge that they are preparing to counter Western attacks on their behaviour in the case should it still be unresolved when the conference opens. The Jazz Section, formed as part of the now-banned Musicians’ Union in 1971, has been affiliated since 1979 with the International Jazz Federation

under the auspices of U.N.E.S.C.O.

As well as organising concerts, it developed into an independent publisher of magazines and books on jazz, rock, art, and other cultural topics. It offered its 7000 members books they could not get through the State stores, printed illicitly at small printing houses which were Often harassed or closed down.

Wednesday sessions at its cramped, untidy offices in the south of Prague became a magnet for those seeking an alternative to Communist-approved entertainment.

Vaclav Havel, the playwright, who is a prominent figure in the Charter 77 human-rights move-

ment, warmly praised the group and said it was always pushing at the limits of State dictates on culture. “Their Jazz Bulletin was the best thing on youth culture,” he said in an interview.

“They operated at the periphery of the legal structure,” he said, adding this work was “very important for the future. In this area the spiritual life of the country has developed.” Another. leading Charter figure, Mr Jiri Dienstbier, said it was not the content of the publications that upset the authorities, but the fact that they acted independently. “They could not have been hit under the law for the content,” he said. Jazz Section officials argue

that it was legal for the publications to be distributed uncensored to members. They were essentially non-political in content, including histories of rock and jazz and philosophical works from abroad.

They also included works whose publication was a political act, like the address by Jaroslav Seifert, a poet and Charter 77 signatory, when he received the Nobel Prize for literature last year. The authorities did not publish the speech. Mr Havel, and others who support the activities of the Jazz Section, were surprised by the arrests just two months before the start of the Vienna meeting. “Nothing they could have done before Vienna would have had such a bad publicity effect as that,” he said. Neither officials nor supporters could explain why the arrests were made at that moment, which followed years of harassment and charges of financial malpractice. Mrs Rostislava Krivankova, wife of one prisoner, Mr Tomas Krivanek, said one theory was

that they were arrested in order* to free them just before Vienna, and create a good international* impression. “But that is very' optimistic,” she said. 1 The group’s legal adviser, Mr' Josef Prusa, said an alternative' Jazz Section committee of eight members had been established to’ press for the freedom of their, colleagues, and would address aNote to the Vienna C.S.C.E. meeting if the detentions continued.' * •

Foreign Ministry officials, who will themselves be involved in fielding Western attacks on the Jazz Section, indicated a solution was being sought. . . Mr Frantisek Dolezel, a ber of the Czechoslovak delegation to Vienna, said: “I am* confident this question will be. settled soon.” He added: “I think; the necessary steps will be taken ... but not only because of Vienna.” ’

Mr Krejci said a traditional" jazz festival, with international; artists,, is going ahead as planned; later this month. “They won’t' miss those who are in prison,” lyir Krejci said.