The founding statement of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted (VONS) of April 27^th, 1978, signed by seventeen signatories on the Charter 77, who posted their addresses so that people could find them. VONS's goal was to track the cases of people who had been prosecuted or imprisoned for their opinions and beliefs or who had become victims of police and judicial arbitrariness. VONS, by means of numbered communications, familiarised the domestic and international public with these cases and asked the Czechoslovak authorities for remedy. They helped to provide legal representation and mediate financial assistance to the unjustly persecuted and imprisoned.

The impulse for the creation of VONS was, among other things, the events associated with the Railroad Ball in January 1978, in which the signatories of the Charter 77 wanted to attend to. However, three of them were detained by the state security. In support of them, the Defence Committee was formed by Václav Havel, Pavel Landovský and Jaroslav Kukal, who gathered documents for their defence and informed the Czech and foreign public about the whole case. The accusations were released after six weeks and the prosecution was halted. This was a great success for committee members and other dissidents, so VONS was founded in May 1978.