Havel helps launch new Plastic People CD at Prague club

Former Czech president Václav Havel was the guest of honour at the Czech launch of the latest album by the rock band Plastic People of the Universe at Prague’s Akropolis club on Tuesday night. It was the group’s imprisonment by the communist regime that sparked the Charter 77 protest movement, in which Mr Havel was a key figure. The Plastic People’s LP Maska za maskou (The Mask behind the Mask) is their first since 2001 and the first written since the death of main songwriter Milan “Mejla” Hlavsa.