Ceremony at Czech Radio for victims of Soviet-led invasion of 1968

A remembrance ceremony has been held in front of the Czech Radio building on Prague's Vinohradska St, the site of the bloodiest fighting on August 21, 1968, when Soviet-led troops invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the reform movement known as the Prague Spring. More than 90 people were killed and several hundred wounded in the first weeks of the invasion.

Speaking at Saturday's ceremony - which was attended by around 100, mostly elderly people - the chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, Lubomir Zaoralek said efforts to create a more free life in Czechoslovakia did not die under the invading armies' tanks, but a year later in August 1969, when Czechoslovak security forces suppressed protest demonstrations.

The mayor of Prague, Pavel Bem, warned of the dangers of forgetting the past, pointing out that one in five Czechs now vote for the Communist Party. He thanked those who had shown opposition to the occupying troops in 1968, and those who survived the following two decades unbowed.