In the 1970s, the psychedelic Czech rock band played an unexpected role in the resistance to communist rule. Their imprisonment by the authorities prompted playwright, Václav Havel, to form the human rights group, Charter 77. The organisation was at the forefront of the Velvet Revolution which led to the downfall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989.

(Photo: Vratislav Brabenec (centre) and the Plastic People of the Universe in the 1970s. Credit: Redferns)