Defend the Jazz Branch Seven EIGHTEEN YEARS after the throttling of the Prague Spring, the Husak regime is still pursuing its policy of "normalization" and ideological rehardening up. In Czechoslovakia, there is no sign of the "liberalization" that Gorbachev is applying in Moscow in order to years have been stepping up their attempts to silence the jazz branch. Standing on certain articles in its statutes, the musicians' union refused several times to dissolve the jazz branch. In 1983, it yielded, but immediately took the jazz branch into its Prague organization.
Finally, in July 1984, the musicians' union itself was suspended until it eliminated all members of the jazz branch from its ranks. But as soon as it was authorized to resume its activities, the musicians' union continued to give refuge in fact to its turbulent jazz branch.
To put an end to this continual defiance, the authorities decided to carry through a reform of Soviet controlled from above. ANNA LIBERA
With an unconscious humor seasoned with the bitter salt of cynicism, the secretary of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party explained to those who might be wondering that Czechoslovakia is not a Russian colony and therefore is not obliged to follow all the turns decided on in Moscow.
The government's rigidity in economic and social affairs is equalled only by its systematic repression of all those who think differently from it. Nonetheless, while it has sent many defenders of human rights to prison, forced many others into exile and made life difficult for those who are continuing the struggle within the country, it has not managed to silence the voice of the onnosition the voice of the opposition.
Ten years after its birth, Charter 77 is indefatigably pursuing its political and cultural activity. At the same time, Catholic circles are building up sustained activity, and are today the favorite target of the police.
Perhaps more worrying for the regime, cultural circles are proving very resistant to normalization, and protest is developing in thoroughly official bodies such as the Czechoslovak musicians' union.
To curb this process, the authorities decided to arrest seven leaders of the jazz branch of the musicians' union on September 6. For some years, this section has been a cradle of cultural non-conformism, looked upon with disquiet by the authorities.
Formed in 1971 as a subsection of the musicians' union, the jazz branch quickly became a refuge not only for musicians but also for authors out of step with the ideological normalization.
Taking advantage of the fact that musical publications, which were thought harmless, were not subjected is applyıng ın Moscow in order to economic and social life directed and to a strict censorship, the jazz branch started publishing in its magazine
Jazz writings rejected by other official publications.
This activity soon extended to two collections of books called Jazzpetit and Situace, which touched on a lot of subjects other than music.
The impact of the activities of the jazz branch testify to the hunger for cultural freedom that exists in the country. At the beginning of the 1980s, the jazz branch had 7,000 members, and its books were read by
80,000 to 100,000 people.
This was a thorn in the side of the authorities, who for several
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dellance, the authorities decided to arrest the seven main leaders of the jazz branch on the charge of tax fraud (supposedly they failed to pay the taxes due on their publishing activity).
Obviously, no one was fooled by this, as is shown by the protests issued by a "Committee of Jazz Branch Activists" and a petition signed by several thousand people that is circulating in Prague to demand the immediate release of the Jazz Branch Seven.
It seems that the authorities struck a blow at a much broader layer than the traditional opposition, against whom it seems more difficult to "justify" repression. This is doubtlessly why they are dragging their feet about coming to a decision (the two months of pre-trial investigation have already gone by.) The time thus afforded must be put to use to organize the broadest possible solidarity with the Jazz Branch Seven.
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