Martin Palous

Martin Palous, a founder of the Charter 77 democracy movement. 

"Mr. Palouš was one of the first signatories of Charter 77 and served as spokesman for this dissident human rights group in 1986. A founding member of the Civic Forum (November 1989), he was elected to the Federal Assembly in 1990 and became a member of its Foreign Affairs Committee. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia as adviser to Minister Dienstbier and was Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs from October 1990 to October 1992. Between October 1998 and September 2001 he served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, between September 2002 and November 2005 he was posted in Washington as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Czech Republic to the United States.

"Mr. Palouš has held a number of teaching positions at Charles University, since 1990. He became a member of the Faculty of Social Sciences (the Institute of Foreign Relations) in 1994 and served for some time as the Faculty s Vice Dean. In 1993, he joined the Centre for Theoretical Studies (research centre run jointly by Charles University and the Czech Academy of Sciences, headed by Ivan M. Havel). He has lectured extensively in the United States. In 1993-1994 he was a visiting professor at Northwestern University, in 1995-1996 an associated professor at Central European University in Budapest. Until 1998 he was also active in various non-governmental organizations (Chairman of the Czech Helsinki Committee, Co-Chairman of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly)." 

"On the 16th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Ambassador Martin Palous, before departing Washington to become Czech UN Ambassador, gave the 6th Annual Czech and Slovak Freedom Lecture sponsored by Friends of Slovakia and American Friends of the Czech Republic. He spoke eloquently to an audience of members of FoS and AFoCR at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on the "Czech-U.S. Relationship at the Beginning of the 21st Century"." 


 * Scholar/Advisor, International Freedom Center