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Current AffairsPolice issue first charges ever over 1950s forced farm collectivatisation
Over half a century later, the Czech police have, for the first time ever,
issued charges connected with the forced collectivatisation of farms by
the
Communist regime in the 1950s. According to press reports on Thursday,
officers recently began the prosecution of a former Communist functionary
who is now in his late 70s. More
Current AffairsCommunist leaders support monument to victims of communism
The head of the Czech communist party Vojtech Filip and communist MEP
Miloslav Randsorf have contributed financially to a planned memorial to
Milada Horakova, a Czech politician executed by the Czechoslovak communist
regime in 1950. The corner stone of the monument was laid on Tuesday near
Prague’s Pankrac prison where Milada Horakova and other political
prisoners were executed.
More
Current AffairsPlans to bring persecutors of wealthy farmers to justice
During the enforced nationalisation of the hard-line 1950s, one class who
came in for particular persecution were the 'kulaks' or wealthier,
propertied farmers. As part of their efforts to destroy them, the
Communists are believed to have displaced over 4,000 such farming families.
Now - a full 50 or more years later - there are moves to bring to justice
some of those responsible for what has even been described as genocide.
More
Current AffairsTrial begins of former prosecutor who helped send Milada Horakova to gallows
On Tuesday a court in Prague began hearing the case against Ludmila
Brozova-Polednova, the last living participant in one of the most
notorious
show trials of communist-era Czechoslovakia. In 1950, Mrs
Brozova-Polednova
was a 29-year-old prosecutor who helped condemn the democratic politician
Milada Horakova to death. Now 86, she is being tried as an accomplice to
murder. More
Current AffairsCatholic Church to screen priests for collaboration with StB
Thousands of public officials have had their pasts scrutinised under a
lustration or screening law adopted two years after the fall of communism.
It aims to stop former senior officials, agents and collaborators reaching
high office today. Now, a full decade and a half later, the Czech
Republic's Roman Catholic Church is also beginning to screen its priests
for evidence of collaboration with the communist-era secret police, the
StB. More
Special17th November 1989: dealing with the complex legacy of the revolution
The dramatic events of the Velvet Revolution began on the 17th November
1989. A student demonstration was put down brutally by the police,
resulting in a huge public outcry. Protests and further demonstrations
gained such rapid momentum that within days the regime was doomed, and by
the end of the year Vaclav Havel was president. Any Czech over the age of
thirty-five will have vivid memories of the time, but in the meantime a
generation has grown up for whom these events are no more than history. So
how, seventeen years after the fall of communism, should the Czech Republic
be dealing with the complex legacy of totalitarianism, and making sure that
future generations will not repeat the mistakes of the past? This is a
subject that has remained every bit as controversial as it was in the
first days after the fall of the regime, as I shall be exploring in this
special programme to mark the anniversary of the events of November 1989.
More
Current AffairsDocumentary series tells story of dramatic 1949 escape of Bohuslav Horak
Bohuslav Horak, the husband of Milada Horakova who was executed after a
notorious show trial in 1950, escaped communist Czechoslovakia in 1949 but
until now the details have not been known. Fifty-seven years later, the
people who helped Bohuslav Horak escape across the Iron Curtain have come
forth, and Czech Television has captured the dramatic events as part of
its documentary series "Stories of the Iron Curtain."
More
