Czechs mark 59 years since Communist takeover

Hundreds of people have marked the fifty-ninth anniversary of the communist putsch in Czechoslovakia by gathering on Prague's Old Town Square to commemorate the victims of Communism. Speaking on the same balcony of the Kinsky Palace from where Communist leader Klement Gottwald gave his first address to the nation after taking power 59 years ago, the president of the Confederation of Political Prisoners, Nadezda Kavalirova, asked Czechs to call for a ban of the Communist Party. The Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia on February 25 1948, starting forty years of totalitarian rule.

Dozens of people, including Senate chairman Premysl Sobotka, also gathered on Sunday in Prague's Mala Strana district to commemorate a student march to Prague Castle, which took place on the same day as the communist putsch in 1948. The march was crushed by the police as it was in protest at Communist rule and in support of the then president Edvard Benes. Its participants were later persecuted by the regime.