Výpověď – Žantovský Michael (2007)

In July 2007, the Municipal Court in Prague fully acquitted Dr. Uzunoglu after thirteen years in a case with a clear political-economic-police background. The book-length interview by Petr Žantovský with Yekta Uzunoglu, completed in the autumn of 2007, is a gripping yet also tragic and shocking testimony about the state of Czech society nearly twenty years after the Velvet Revolution and the background of our post-November transformation. In the interview, Dr. Uzunoglu recalls his childhood, youth, and activities in former Czechoslovakia, Germany, and France. These included participation in the organization Doctors Without Borders, where he worked as a physician in war conflicts in Iran and Iraq, as well as the founding of the Kurdish Institute in Germany and France, which are associated with issues concerning the Kurdish nation, language, culture, and the status of Kurds in the contemporary world. The book is supplemented by visual and textual attachments: for example, the open letter "We Accuse" from Czech intellectuals who spoke out in support of Uzunoglu during the judicial persecution, Dr. Uzunoglu's speech upon receiving the František Kriegel Award, etc. The introduction by the chairman of the Board of the Charter 77 Foundation, Prof. František Janouch, compares the case to the Dreyfus Affair, the legendary judicial error that preceded...