Sobotka (senior government Civic Democrats, ODS) said democracy actually turned into a totalitarian regime in a single day in Czechoslovakia on February 25, 1948. Zdenek Bohac, head of the Prague Academic Club 48, recalled that the communists used appealing, all-promising words then. "We are alarmed to see it all being repeated.
Please, don't get Communist leaders support monument to victims of communism ...
Czechs lay foundation to monument of victim of communism ... fooled," Bohac called on Czech citizens. "Our democracy today and our representation in the Euroatlantic structures may make us believe that we don't have to fear the coming of totality anymore. But totality can have many forms and the care for freedom is a never ending effort," Sobotka said. On February 23, 1948, a three-member student delegation visited then Czechoslovak president Edvard Benes to support him in his effort not to give in to the Communist pressure. Two days later, several thousands of students marched to the Prague Castle, but the police did not allow another student delegation to enter the presidential seat. On February 25, 1948, Benes gave in to the pressure and signed the resignation of non-communist ministers and appointed new ministers proposed by the Communist Party (KSC). The students who had participated in the 1948 march were persecuted under the communist regime, which lasted in the country for 50 years following the coup in end February 1948. More than 10,000 students and teachers had to leave schools by 1949. A small part of these people were rehabilitated in the late 1960s, the rest of them only after the 1989 fall of communism.
(Ceske Noviny)
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