Topic: Jiri Vanek

Jiri Vanek or Jiří Vaněk (born October 10, 1943 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is an obscure Czech expatriate political activist, whose political commentaries can be better described as personal vendetta related to his past experience in Czechoslovakia. He now lives in Sydney, Australia.

In 1978 he renounced his Czechoslovak citizenship and then moved from the country of his birth (Czechoslovakia) to Vienna, Austria, from where he left in 1980 for Australia.

His profession was a bulldozer driver. He was one of the signatories of Charter 77, but not an associate of Václav Havel. He might be the only signatory who ever called off his signature while abroad, free and not under duress. He explains this step by his ever growing dissatisfaction with the direction the Charter 77 movement was taking and by his personal disputes with other signatories while in exile in Vienna, Austria.