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Almost exactly a year ago, five members of the communist era political police the StB and officials from the communist Interior Ministry were sentenced in Prague for abuse of office in cases that date back more than two decades. In the late 1970s and 80s, the secret police mastermind a campaign code-named "Asanace" or "Clearance" which used intimidation and violence to force anti-Communist dissidents to flee the country. The plan was launched by communist Interior Minister Jaromir Obzina. Mr Obzina himself was charged with abuse of office, but

Last week one of the most prominent dissidents in Cuba, Oswaldo Paya, was in the Czech Republic. Because of their shared experiences of communism Cuban dissidents have close links with this country, despite the nearly 5000 miles between the two countries. The peaceful transition to democracy and Vaclav Havel's almost miraculous journey from prison to the presidency, offer hope that the same could happen in Havana. The head of Radio Prague's Spanish section, Freddy Valverde, has spent a good deal of time in Cuba, and traveled to Miami last year

Jaroslava Moserova is one of the most widely respected Senators in the Czech parliament, and has even been spoken of as a possible successor to President Havel. But her memory for this week's Witness goes back to her previous career as a doctor and burns expert at the plastic surgery clinic of the Charles University Faculty Hospital here in Prague. She was on duty when, on the 16th January 1969, the twenty-year-old Jan Palach was rushed into the clinic with third degree burns. He had doused himself with petrol and set himself alight on Wenceslas

Last November the film director Matej Minac achieved something beyond his dreams. His film "Nicholas Winton - the Power of Good", won the greatest international honour that a documentary film can achieve: it was voted best documentary in the International Emmy Television Awards in New York. The film, a Czech-Slovak coproduction, is about a young British stockbroker, who saved nearly 700 Jewish children at the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Prague, struggling against time to find them homes in Britain. The now 93-year-old Nicholas Winton is

During the Velvet Revolution, Michal Lobkowicz found himself wanting to take part in the events that would change the course of his country's history. But while many were content with just being a part of the revolution, Michal Lobkowicz continued to pursue a career in politics, and in 1990 he was elected to the Czech parliament as a member of the Civic Democratic Party. In 1998, at the age of 34, he became defence minister in the interim government of Josef Tosovsky, and during his ministerial term he quit the Christian Democrats for the newly

For this week's Witness, the last before Christmas, we bring you the story of a dream come true. Professor Frantisek Janouch is one of Europe's foremost nuclear physicists. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 he lost his job and five years later was driven into exile. In Sweden he founded the Charter 77 foundation, which played a huge role in helping dissidents back home in Czechoslovakia. Since the fall of communism the foundation has continued its work, now focusing on charity and cultural projects. Here Frantisek Janouch remembers

Colonel Petr Uruba is a former Czechoslovak pilot who fled to England in 1939 and joined the RAF. His plane was blown off course during a bombing mission over France, and he was forced to land in occupied Normandy. Captured by the Germans, he was court-martialled: as a subject of the Reich fighting for the Allies he was guilty of treason. He managed to escape the death sentence, and was sent to a series of POW camps, ending up in the infamous Colditz. Now 86, he recalls returning to London in 1945 and witnessing the scenes of jubilation on

Jiri Vydra is a painter and sculptor who loves to share his gift with others, driven by his own, very personal sense of spirituality. For years he has been working with children, and with his own childlike enthusiasm he has helped to inspire hundreds of children to express themselves through painting. Some of his most extraordinary and inspiring work has been with the mentally disabled, with children who spend most of their lives shut away in homes. Jiri Vydra's cottage in the rolling Brdy Hills is just a few kilometers from one of these homes,

Jiri Dienstbier has quite a curriculum vitae. He went from being a political prisoner and then a stoker under the communists to Czechoslovak foreign minister after the revolution. Then from 1997 to 2001 he was United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Jugoslavia. But Jiri Dienstbier's original profession was journalism, and - in the 1960s - he worked as a foreign correspondent for Czech Radio. Even that was a sign of the easing of the restrictions which ended with the Prague Spring of 1968, he says; in the 50s the Czechoslovak media

Every year, the Czech branch of UNICEF has a campaign asking people to contribute to a collection for a specific country in the third world. This year, it is focusing on Rwanda where thousands of children have been left alone to take care of themselves and their siblings. Pavla Gomba was part of a UNICEF mission to Rwanda last month, where she travelled to very remote villages to talk to people about their daily lives and experiences. The most striking meeting was with Bonne Annee. His name translates as Happy New Year because he was born on New