Prague The Post Online Pluck and luck save smuggled photos Banned images taken by Czech beauty queen to go on display in Prague By Sarah Schaschek and Jeffrey White Staff Writers, The Prague Post February 15, 2006 Helena Houdov Cuban police were intent on preventing these less-than-flattering images of the country's impoverished and regimented people from leaving the island. As a supermodel and 1999's Miss Czech Republic, Helena Houdov has been on the receiving end of a camera's attention. But the 26-year-old now finds herself on the other side of the lens. After an unpleasant arrest in Cuba Jan. 23 during which she and a friend were kept under guard for almost 12 hours Houdov is planning an exhibition featuring many of the photographs of Havana slums and health institutions that led to her detainment. It is set to open Feb. 22 at Langhans Gallery. While Cuba's communist regime would have visitors associate Havana with palm-lined avenues and beach-front restaurants, Houdov 's photos tell a different story: that of the plight of local AIDS patients in prisons and sanitariums, and the lives of the poor in shantytowns on the city's outskirts. Houdov smuggled the photos out of Cuba by hiding the digital memory chip on which they were stored in her bra. Everything had started well for Houdov and her friend, Mariana Kroftov, 26, when they arrived in Cuba on Jan. 19. They came with a purpose: to find out whether Houdov 's charity, the Sunflower Foundation, could assist local children and those afflicted with AIDS. The humanitarian organization People in Need had put them in contact with two people in Havana: a man living with HIV, and the wife of a prominent doctor and dissident. Houdov and Kroftov met with them and explained that they wanted to see institutions and outlying neighborhoods. The man and woman acted as guides. Among other sites, Houdov and Kroftov toured a sanitarium filled with suffering AIDS patients. In an interview with The Prague Post, Kroftov said the facility was "desperate." "These were HIV-positive people, and they have no other choice but to be there because they are not allowed to work if they are HIV-positive," said. she "The government puts them into these places which are so hidden, so far away, and the conditions are just terrible there." It was late on a Monday afternoon when Houdov and Kroftov were confronted by a member of the Revolutionary Committee, who yelled at them for taking pictures and summoned a member of the secret police, who escorted them to a nearby police station. There they sat as the police confiscated Kroftov's film and examined Houdov's digital camera. At some point she slipped the camera's memory chip into her shirt and told police that she had erased the pictures. Hours passed. Eventually the two women were taken to the immigration police, where they faced tougher questions. They stonewalled investigators, Kroftov says, pretending not to understand the questions being asked. At about 3 a.m., authorities presented the two with papers to sign, asking them to name their guides and admit to participating in
"counterrevolutionary activities." They both refused. Sometime later, less-complicated documents appeared, requiring the two to pledge not to engage in counterrevolutionary activities like taking pictures. Houdov and Kroftov were let go, but ordered to remain at the same hotel for the remainder of their trip. The two took walks and were f...