Former political prisoners set out on pilgrimage

Svaty Hostyn, South Moravia, Sept 1 (CTK) - Several hundred former Czech political prisoners and their relatives Saturday took part in the 20th pilgrimage at the Svaty Hostyn to commemorate torturing and deaths of their friends in communist prisons.

Frantisek Sedivy, head of the organising Czech Confederation of Political Prisoners (KVP), said the mission and legacy of the confederation has not changed since 1993 when the first official pilgrimage was held at Svaty Hostyn.

The political prisoners sought the renewal of democracy and freedom in the country and some of them lost their lives because of it, said Sedivy who had spent 12 years in communist prisons. He was sentenced for organising student groups that opposed the communist regime.

Sedivy remembered the 1993 pilgrimage.

"There was much more of us then. Some of us even walked from the train station, which none of us would probably be able to do now," he said.

At present, the KVP comprises about 1300 former prisoners. "The average age of our members is 81 or 82 years," Sedivy said.

The KVP has long been calling for the official recognition of the anticommunist resistance movement. The law finally took effect last autumn.

The former political prisoners are not fully satisfied with the final version of the law, however.

"We were not seeking financial compensation. We demanded moral satisfaction and recognition of the anticommunist resistance," Sedivy said.

Under the Czechoslovak communist regime (1948-1989), 240 persons were executed for political reasons. More than 200,000 people were imprisoned. Many people were killed when they tried to cross the heavily guarded border, others were tortured to death during interrogation or died in prison due to injuries and bad conditions.

Many former political prisoners have been regularly meeting at Hostyn since the 1960s. A memorial to the victims of communism has been built at the Hostyn hill.