Abstract
How are ordinary, decent people to react to the imposition of a repressive regime, how much should they risk in showing their opposition to it? These questions were raised by Ludvìk Vaculìk in a feuilleton he wrote last December, which brought an indignant reply from Vàclav Havel, as well as a dozen other dissidents. The controversy has now been given a poignant twist by the arrest of Vàvel, together with nine other Chartists. Earlier, he had for several months been under virtual house arrest (see p41).