Current Affairs Palach Week: January protests that foreshadowed revolution of November 1989
Following his suicide, Jan Palach was adopted by Czechs as a national hero, while the communist authorities tried – in vain – to erase all trace of what he had done. When Czechs gathered to mark his death 20 years later in 1989, they were met with tear gas and unprecedented police brutality. The clampdown resulted in a week of protests, which some say led to the Velvet Revolution in November that year.
Back
