Jiří Pelikán

Who is Jiří Pelikán?

Jiří Pelikán was a Czechoslovakian journalist and member of parliament, then a member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party.

In 1939 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in exile and took part in the Resistance in Czechoslovakia during the Second World War.

From 1953 to 1963 he assumed leading functions in the communist-led International Union of Students. Until 1968 he was the director of the Czechoslovak Television and a member of the parliament from 1964 to 1969.

He fully supported the Prague Spring and organized the first live debate in common with the Austrian television ORF. When the troops of the Warsaw Pact entered Prague on 20 August 1968 he organized the resistance among journalists. In 1969 he fled the Gustáv Husák regime and was given political asylum in Italy.

He was elected to the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party in 1979 and again in 1984.

After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, he became from 1990 to 1991 member of the Consultative Council of the President Václav Havel.

He died in Rome in 1999 after a long battle with cancer.