Ceremony held to mark anniversary of 1948 Communist takeover

Around 300 people gathered on Prague’s Old Town Square on Tuesday evening to mark the 66th anniversary of the Communist takeover of power in Czechoslovakia. People holding candles formed a circle around the square in order to pay tribute both to the thousands of victims of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia and to the recent victims of violence in Ukraine. On February 25 1948, President Edvard Beneš accepted the resignations of 12 non-Communist government ministers and names replacements put forward by Communist PM Klement Gottwald, bringing an end to democracy in the country for over four decades.