Petr Uhl, journalist, communist-era dissident dies at 80

PRAGUE (AP) — Petr Uhl, a Czech journalist who was one of the country’s leading communist-era dissidents and human rights activists, has died at 80. His wife, former Czech ombudsman Anna Sabatova, told the CTK agency that he died on Wednesday. Uhl headed the national news agency in the early 1990s following the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution led by the late Vaclav Havel, a fellow anti-communist dissident. For his activities against the hardline communist regime, Uhl was imprisoned several times. He was one of the organizers of the Charter 77 human rights manifesto inspired by Havel and published a samizdat journal about it. He also co-founded the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted.