Award-winning journalist, Charter 77 signatory Jiří Hanák dies

Czech journalist Jiří Hanák, an early Charter 77 signatory, died on Friday at the age of 82. He won several prestigious awards during his career, including the Ferdinand Peroutka and Opus Vitae prizes.

Hanák was sacked as editor of the magazine Reportér during to so-called normalization period after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and forced to do menial work.

In January 1988, he started writing for the samizdat newspaper Lidové Noviny, where he remains after the Velvet Revolution.

Hanák later helped develop the weekly magazine Týden and severed as editor of newspaper Svobodné Slovo, and as a commentator for the daily Právo, before returning to Lidové Noviny in 2016.