Pavel says he regrets former ignorance as country remembers victims of communist regime

President Petr Pavel attended a memorial gathering on Tuesday in Prague's Újezd to honour the victims of the former communist regime who were imprisoned and executed for political reasons. He said at the event that he regrets his ignorance of the systemic failures of the regime before 1989, considering them at the time to be individual mistakes, and that he respects all those who were able to clearly see the totalitarian regime for what it was and had the courage to stand up to it.

Lawyer and politician Milada Horáková, who was sentenced to death and executed by the state in a 1950 political show trial, was among those commemorated in several places around Czechia on Tuesday as the country marked the annual Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Communist Regime. June 27 marks 73 years since the execution of Horáková, lawyer Oldřich Pecl, former police guard Jan Buchal and journalist Závis Kalandra.