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Some two hundred people attended the unveiling of a memorial in Prague to democratic politician Milada Horáková, who was executed by the communist regime after a show trial in 1950. The memorial is located near Pankrác prison where she and other political prisoners were jailed and executed. Although Horáková’s name and legacy evokes great respect some people refused to attend the unveiling ceremony after it emerged that the Communist Party had also made a financial contribution to the memorial. The Political Prisoners Confederation said it was an outrage that the communists who had murdered her should have been allowed to do so. The memorial’s construction was initiated by the Milada Horáková Club and two marginal parties, the Czech National Socialist Party and the Masaryk Democratic Party, who said that lack of money had forced them to accept a financial gift from the communists.

Former Czech president Václav Havel will open the plenary session of the European Parliament on November 11, with a speech on the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism in central and eastern Europe, EP President Jerzy Buzek’s spokeswoman Inga Rosinska told the ctk news agency on Wednesday. In a symbolic gesture MEPs have also invited a group of 89 young people –all born in 1989 – to the plenary session. The event is to be accompanied by an exhibition of photographs documenting the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia.

The Constitutional Court has postponed a final verdict on whether the EU’s Lisbon treaty is in line with Czech law until next Tuesday. The court held a public hearing on the matter on Tuesday, in response to a petition filed a month ago by a group of senators loyal to the Eurosceptic Czech president, Václav Klaus. They say Lisbon would threaten Czech sovereignty.

The Czech Republic is the only state in the EU not to have completed ratification of the Lisbon treaty. If the Constitutional Court gives it the green light, President Klaus would be obliged to put his signature to ratification. However, Mr Klaus is demanding that the Czech Republic receive an opt-out from Lisbon’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. He says that otherwise Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia after Word War II could seek to reclaim property.

The Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, is hoping to secure a deal with EU leaders in Brussels later this week under which the opt-out would be granted, if Mr Klaus promises to sign Lisbon. The president’s office said on Tuesday that his chancellor Jiří Weigl would be in the Czech delegation at the summit.

An extensive outdoor exhibition about 20th century Czech history has been unveiled in Prague marking two decades since the fall of communism. Entitled My jsme to nevzdali (We Never Gave In), it features 150 panels at various locations in the centre of the Czech capital from Prague Castle to Wenceslas Square. Launching the project on Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Jan Fischer said it would help disprove clichés about Czechs having a tendency to give in without a fight. As well as information panels detailing the fates of individuals, the exhibition features a replica of a labour camp guard-tower, across the street from Malostranská metro station, and a freight wagon on Wenceslas Square.