Leseprobe

8 0 C Z E C H R E P U B L I C working. Freedom of assembly and speech were restricted once again and hard-won reliefs reversed. The attempt to create “socialism with a human face” had been bloodily suppressed. On 16 January 1969, the student Jan Palach set himself on fire on Wenceslas Square in Prague to protest against the invasion. Barely ten years later, with the civil rights movement Charter 77, critical intellectuals and artists once again publicly advocated fighting for democratic rights and freedoms and denounced human rights violations. Encouraged by the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1976, they sup- ported the democratisation of society and respect for human rights. These initiatives were also answered with persecution and repression, and their authors were imprisoned for years, banned from working and harassed. Among them was the future President Václav Havel. Despite the reprisals, there were repeated protests. In 1978, the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted was founded, whose most prominent founders and supporters, such as Václav Benda, Václav Havel, Petr Uhl and Jirˇí Dienstbier, were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms. The policy of glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union that started in the mid-1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev also had an impact on the opposition and dissident movement in the CˇSSR. For example, in August 1988, the 20 th anniversary of the suppression of the Prague Spring, thou- sands of students demonstrated in Prague for the democratisation of their society. In the wake of the political changes in the neighbouring countries of Hungary, Poland and the GDR, where the Wall had fallen on 9 November 1989 and hundreds of thousands of people had successfully taken their protest against the communist regime to the streets, the people in the Czechoslovak capital also began to rise up. A demonstration of more than 15,000 students on 17 November in Prague marked the beginning of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. This was violently sup- pressed by the police but led to a huge outpouring of solidarity throughout the country and further revolts against the communist regime. Protest rallies took place in many cities; a general strike was joined by millions of people across the country. On 24 November 1989, from Wenceslas Square in Prague, Alexander Dubc´ek and Václav Havel, two iconic figures in the resistance, demanded the resignation of the KSCˇ Politburo. As in the other communist countries, the fall of the communist rulers took place extremely quickly. Negotiations began on 28 November 1989 between the Civic Forum, which had been set up just a few days earlier, and the government, which eventually led to the formation of a new govern- ment dominated by representatives of the opposition. The upheaval in Czechoslovakia became known as the “Velvet Revolution” because the changes were brought about not by bloodshed but at the negotiating table. The keychains used by the people to loudly voice their protest became a symbol of the mass demonstrations against the regime. The election of Alexander Dubc´ek as Chairman of the Parliament and Václav Havel as President in December 1989 marked the final triumph over communism. Communist rule in Czechoslovakia had overseen 248 politically motivated executions. 200,000 people were convicted on political grounds, and 4,500 died due to the inhumane conditions in prison. At least 327 people lost their lives trying to escape. About 250,000 people were imprisoned in internment and forced labour camps, and some three times as many were discriminated against on professional or social grounds, plus another 500,000 to 750,000 on religious grounds. After the reorganisation of Czechoslovakia, unjustly convicted former political prisoners were rehabilitated. In addition, a lustration law was passed in 1991 that removed former high officials, state security and People’s Militia members from higher administrative posts and public offices.