Prague, 9 January 1997 (RFE/RL) - The newlywed wife of Czech President Vaclav Havel, Dagmar Havlova, says she is convinced she did not sign the Communist-sponsored anti-dissident manifesto known as the "anti-charter" 20 years ago.
Presidential spokesman Ladislav Spacek, speaking to the Prague daily "Pravo," quotes the actress-turned-First Lady as saying she was one of five actors at Prague's Jiri Wolker Theater who did not sign the anti-Charter.
In Spacek's words "according to how Mrs. Havlova recalls that period in time, she is aware she did not sign anything of that sort."
Pravo's predecessor, the Czechoslovak Communist party daily, "Rude Pravo," published a list of signatories of the anti-charter in February 1977, including Dagmar Veskrnova, who married Havel last Saturday and is now Dagmar Havlova.
She was 23 years old at the time, was married to her first husband and on maternity leave with her daughter Nina.
Twenty years ago, Havel and other Czechoslovak dissidents, in a petition known as Charter 77, called on the authorities to abide by the international accords on human rights they had signed.
The Communist party responded by persuading cultural figures to sign a denunciation of Charter 77, known as the anti-Charter.