Czech Republic’s foreign affairs minister to speak at MMC Sept. 19


Czech Republic Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg will deliver a lecture on Monday, Sept. 19, at FIU’s Frost Art Museum, reflecting on the Arab Spring and other global events that have transformed the Czech Republic.

Titled “Through the Lens of the Czech Experience,” the lecture is set for 2:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Born in Prague in 1937, Schwarzenberg and his family were forced to leave Czechoslovakia in 1948 for Austria. There, he studied law and silviculture at the universities of Vienna and Graz. He also studied at the University of Munich in then-West Germany.

A staunch opponent of communist rule in his native Czechoslovakia, Schwarzenberg became a prominent human rights advocate and served as chairman of the International Helsinki Federation for Human rights from 1984 until 1991. For his efforts, he was awarded the Human Rights Award of the Council of Europe together with Poland’s Lech Walesa. It was in the early ’90s that he returned to his homeland and was appointed a member of President Václav Havel’s Collegium of Counselors in Czechoslovakia, serving as Chancellor to President Havel from 1990 to 1992.

From 2004 to 2010, Schwarzenberg served as senator of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, chairing the Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defense and Security Committee and serving as a member of the Permanent Delegation of the Parliament to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. In July 2010, he assumed his current role as minister of foreign affairs.

The Sept. 19 lecture at the Frost is co-sponsored by FIU’s European Studies Program, the Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence, the Embassy of the Czech Republic and the Honorary Consulate General of the Czech Republic. For information, call 305-348-7266.

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