Fráňa Zemínová

Františka "Fráňa" Zeminová (15 August 1882 – 26 September 1962) was a Czechoslovak women's rights activist and politician. In 1920 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of Czechoslovakia, becoming one of the first group of female parliamentarians in the country. She remained a member of parliament until 1948, after which she was jailed by the communist authorities.

Biography Zeminová was born in Dolní Chvatliny, then in Austria-Hungary, in 1882, the youngest of twelve children of a farming couple.

Following the occupation of parts of Czechoslovakia by Germany and Hungary in 1939, she became a member of the Party of National Unity. After World War II she served in the Interim National Assembly from 1945 to 1946 and was then elected to the Constituent National Assembly, serving until the 1948 elections.

Following the 1948 coup, she was arrested in 1949 and sentenced to 20 years in jail. She spent eleven years in prisons in Prague, Jihlava and Plzeň working as a seamstress, before being pardoned by President Antonín Novotný as part of a large amnesty in 1960. During her time in prison she had organised hunger strikes, and suffered two heart attacks. After being released, she remained under the supervision of the StB until her death in Velichovky in 1962. She was posthumously awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk in 1992.