„Not to fear and not to steal.“
![Bedrich Koutny.jpg (historic)](/sites/default/files/witness/4439/4439-portrait_former.jpg)
Stáhnout obrázek
Bedřich Koutný was born in 1954 in Zlín. After graduating from high school in 1972, he was rejected from the University of Aeronautics in Košice, Slovakia. He then began to work as a surveyor and in 1974 began studying geodetics at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague. He graduated successfully and served his year-long military service as a field surveyor with the Military Project Institute. Ever since returning to Zlín in 1980 he became active in the dissent, collaborating among others with Jaromír Němec, Bohuslav Obdržálek, Stanislav Devátý and Jan Ruml. He printed Samizdat literature and periodicals - information on Charter 77, Sport, SPUSA magazine. In 1985, a crackdown on Zlín‘s dissidents, the secret police carried out the first house search at his place. When he became a known figure for the secret police in 1987 had he signed Charter 77. In the same year, he and Stanislav Devátý established the Society of Friends of the USA (SPUSA). In 1988 and 1989 he was one of the spokespersons of SPUSA, co-organizing the Palach week and other events. In 1989, he became one of the coordinators of the Civic Forum in Zlín and participated in a citizens‘ commission vetting members of the secret police. In 1990, he left his surveyor job and took up employment as police director in Zlín. Later, he served as head of the Police Presidency of the Zlín Region.