"I see the note-taker typing into the machine, and I thought: What is she thinking? Does she know he's a decent person and that it's untrue? I saw the prosecutors, I saw the judges, and I saw the disinterest. It was like they were not on a trial of a human being. Did they even know him? Did they know that he was a righteous man?"
"One is glad to be Czech. And I am grateful, grateful that my parents did not emigrate, did not leave, that they stayed here. In a way, I'm glad I was born into this world. Twenty-one years under communism were interesting and one can appreciate freedom and democracy more."
"I've seen them beat people up. I've seen them beat old people, I've seen them behave brutally towards people who had no violent intentions. 'We have bare hands!' we chanted, not sticks in hand, but bare hands."
"I don't want to look like a hero. I was so scared. I knew that if I was snapped, it would be bad. They'll threaten my parents, fire them from their jobs. There was a threat of war. You were scared, you were really scared then."
Zdeněk Hübner was born on 20 August 1968 in Ústí nad Orlicí, where he spent his childhood with his parents and younger brother Vojtěch. After primary school he was admitted to the Business Academy in Chocno, from which he successfully graduated in 1986. In the same year he applied to university, but was not accepted as a believer. So he started working at Česká spořitelna. On 10 December 1987, he took part in a demonstration on Old Town Square called by Charter 77. He was also active during the November 1989 demonstrations. In the same year he travelled to the Vatican, which he visited on the occasion of the canonization of Agnes of Bohemia. In 1991 he was admitted to the Faculty of Science and Philosophy of Charles University. Today he is a teacher of history and geography in Česká Třebová.
