Stanislav Pitaš is a Czech signatory of Charter 77, political activist, organiser of concerts and representative of the East Bohemian underground. He has worked as a blue-collar worker for most of his life. He maintained contact with the dissidents around Václav Havel and with the underground community in Vísca near Chomutov, East Bohemia. He distributed the samizdat periodicals “Vokno” and “Voknoviny”. During his travels in Poland, he collaborated with Solidarity and actively supported the movement. In the 1980s, he moved to Broumov, North Bohemia, where he organised underground concerts and happenings. As a signatory of Charter 77, he was under supervision and was the target of intimidation by the State Security (StB). He was imprisoned three times between 1985 and 1989. In 1985 this was for allegedly ridiculing the president of Czechoslovakia when he and his friends created a satirical collage of Gustav Husák. On his way to a demonstration in Prague on 28 October 1988, he refused to follow the orders of StB officers, and instead passively lay down and was arrested. His subsequent complaint served as a pretext for the StB to accuse Pitaš of assaulting an officer. In 1989 he was imprisoned for the alleged theft of socialist property. He requested that his sentence be suspended because his mother was seriously ill; his request was not granted, despite Pitaš’s hunger strike. His mother died without Pitaš being able to pay his last respects. Before her death, she sent a letter to the prosecution office in Náchod, where she wrote that she was proud of how she had raised her son. All Pitaš’s trials were followed and reported by the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS). Pitaš was released following a general amnesty in December 1989. After the Velvet Revolution, he was active within prison and police vetting committees. He organises concerts and other events in Šonov and Broumov.