Czechs marking 55 years since Soviet-led invasion

Czechia is marking 55 years since Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded the country to crush the Prague Spring reform movement. The invasion dashed people’s hopes of democracy and Alexander Dubcek’s concept of “socialism with a human face”. Soviet troops were to remain stationed in the county for a period of twenty years and under the Kremlin’s directions pro-Soviet leaders launched a period of so-called “normalization” in which people who refused to support the regime lost their jobs and were persecuted by the secret police. Over 100 people were killed in clashes with the invading forces and thousands of intellectuals later fled the country.