Senate wants to mark Samizdat Day on April 27

Czech senators have rejected the proposal to mark the Day of Samizdat on October 12, as it was approved by the lower house of Parliament earlier this year. According to the Senate, the day celebrating the production of illicit printed materials under the pre-1989 Communist regime should fall on April 27, which marks the anniversary of the founding of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted in 1978.

An amendment tabled by a group of coalition MPs proposed to celebrate the history of Samizdat on October 12, when a group of 92 Czech and Slovak samizdat publishers wrote an open letter to the then Communist president Gustáv Husák in 1988 condemning the jailing of a colleague.