Václav Vaško (26 April 1921 – 20 May 2009) was a Czech diplomat,

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

activist, author of books dealing with the history of the Catholic Church during the Soviet occupation and communist dictatorship, and a former

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their politics, political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, al ...

of the communist regime. He was awarded the Medal of Merit by President

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and the ...

on 28 October 1998. He was a founding signatory of the

Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was a declaration which was initiated by the Czech government and signed on 3 June 2008 by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, among them former ...

Works

* '' Neumlčená'' (a chronicle of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia during the communist dictatorship, written in the 1980s, published in 1990 in two volumes) * ''Kardinál Tomášek'' (1994, co-authored with

Jan Hartmann Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Numb ...

, Bohumil Svoboda ''et al''.) * '' Ne vším jsem byl rád'' (1999, 2001) * '' Dům na skále'' ** ''Církev zkoušená'' (2004) ** ''Církev bojující'' (2007) ** ''Církev vězněná'' (2008) * ''Likvidace řeckokatolické církve'' (2007)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasko, Vaclav Czechoslovak democracy activists Czech human rights activists 1921 births 2009 deaths