In Prague,
thousands are celebrating the Velvet Revolution's 25th anniversary. The
festivities have also turned into an appeal for Czech President Zeman to
resign. An egg thrown at Zeman hit Germany's president instead.
Deutsche Welle, 17 Nov 2014
Thousands
gathered Monday on Prague's Wenceslas Square, where, exactly 25 years ago,
police assaulted protesters, precipitating the Velvet Revolution a week after
demonstrators toppled the Berlin Wall 315 kilometers (190 miles) north.
Preceded by
a November 16 protest in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the
demonstrations of November 17, 1989, had begun on the campus of Charles
University with fiery speeches against the Soviet-style communist regime.
Downtown,
police blocked the street from both sides, squeezing the protesters with armed
vehicles before attacking them with truncheons, injuring hundreds but breaking
the spirits of few. The crowds grew in the days that followed, culminating with
the resignation of the entire leadership of the Czechoslovak Communist Party on
November 27, 1989 (pictured).
On December
29, the Federal Assembly made playwright Vaclav Havel Czechoslovakia's first
democratic president since Stalin-approved Klement Gottwald took office in
1948. Havel helped Czechoslovakia - and, from 1993, following the Velvet
Divorce, the Czech Republic - become a champion of human rights.
Many Czechs
believe that the current president, Milos Zeman, has betrayed the legacy of the
playwright-president, who died in 2011.
Thousands show Zeman red cards on Národní on 25th anniversary of start of Velvet Revolution. pic.twitter.com/jddepiVrBH
— Ian Willoughby (@Ian_Willoughby) November 17, 2014
'What
Europe is'
Zeman has
supported Russia on Ukraine, praised China and downplayed Soviet-era police
brutality. In a recent radio interview, he called Pussy Riot a pornographic
band and used a vulgar term to describe their name, concluding that the
artists, sentenced to Russian labor camps for their protests, were not
political prisoners. Critics call these missteps proof that Zeman has worn out
his welcome in Prague castle.
Left to right: Hungary's Janos Ader, Poland's Bronislaw Komorowski, Zeman, Gauck and Slovakia's Andrej Kiska |
Before he
went to Prague on Monday to celebrate the anniversary with his former neighbors
behind the Iron Curtain, Gauck went to the "gateway to freedom" on
the Austria-Slovakia border to remember those who had not survived Soviet-style
communism.
Since June,
the five presidents have commemorated the 25th anniversary of that system's end
together in Warsaw, Budapest and Leipzig. On Sunday they were joined by current
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Bratislava, and on Monday all attended
the commemorations in Prague.
"Those
who want to understand today what Europe is must know where we came from,"
Gauck said Monday at the site on the Danube where more than 400 people had died
trying to escape Czechoslovakia.
During the
commemorations, German President Gauck received an egg to the head, thrown by a
protester. A spokesman for the Czech president said the egg was intended for
Zeman.
mkg/se (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)
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