Prague hosts 6th int'l festival against totalitarianism

Prague, Feb 14 (CTK) - The 6th Mene Tekel international culture festival against totalitarianism, evil and violence take place in Prague next week and offer documentary films, discussion meetings, exhibitions and concerts, its organisers announced yesterday.

Zdenek Bohac, head of the Prague Academic Club 48, presented an initiative striving for legal correction of the crimes of communism, including a declaration asking the former communist states to pass legislation enabling a just punishment of communist criminals and scrapping all advantages they may still enjoy.

The 2012 Declaration has been signed by 17 Czech NGOs with support from Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, Bohac said.

"We demand the abolition of the legislation that had been adopted to secure the communist party's privileged position," said Nadezda Kavalirova, head of the Czech Political Prisoners' Confederation.

Parts of the Mene Tekel festival will focus on Romania, Austria and China. Guests to the festival will host Chinese dissident Lu Sping, Austrian investigative author Anita Lackendberger and others.

A reconstruction of the show trial of wartime pilot Josef Bryks will take place in the High Court headquarters.

More information on the festival is available on www.menetekel.cz.

The festival and the Declaration 2012 is supported by the Platform of European memory and freedom, whose aim is to coordinate the studies of and coping with the totalitarian past on the European level and that is based in the Prague Institute for the Studies of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR).

Neela Winkelmann, from the platform, said they are planning a conference in the European Parliament in spring to map chances of forming a special court tribunal for crimes of communism.

The organisers say they launched Mene Tekel six years ago in reaction to people's lack of interest in the fate of political prisoners of the 1950s and the insufficient way children are taught about this period at schools.