The demonstrators carried flags with the portraits of Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and first Czechoslovak communist president Klement Gottwald (in office 1948-53) as well as red flags of the Communist Youth Association and banners expressing their protest against the policy of the Civic Democrat (ODS)-led cabinet. The banners included the inscriptions "Away with the ODS," "Pro-American traitors, referendum is part of democracy," referring to the government support for the planned stationing of a U.S.
radar base on Czech soil, and slogans attacking the government reforms, such as the introduction of patients' fees in health care. The speeches given at the Czech Republic marks anniversary of 1948 communist putsch ...
Czech press survey ...
Vaclav Klaus re-elected Czech president ... really expressed similar opinions. They were interrupted by the demonstrators' chanting slogans against the government and the U.S. base. The communist adherents got into a brawl with anti-communist activist Jan Sinagl who carried a U.S. flag, recorded the speeches and claimed he was a journalist. Marta Semelova, head of the junior opposition Communist (KSCM) Prague branch, pointed out in her speech that everybody had the right to free studies and health care, and the state guaranteed jobs and welfare during the previous regime. Several young people expressed their disagreement with the Communist rally that took place at the square bearing the name of Jan Palach, a Czech student who immolated himself in reaction to the Warsaw Pact troops invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that crashed the communist-led reform movement, and in protest against the subsequent resignation of the majority of citizens. "You are to blame for millions of the dead," a young man was shouting at the communist followers, pointing to a high number of victims of the communist totalitarian regime that collapsed in then Czechoslovakia in November 1989.
(Ceske Noviny)
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