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ANO head: Velvet Revolution did not meet all expectations

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Prague, Nov 17 (CTK) – The Velvet Revolution did not meet all expectations of people, Czech Deputy Prime Minister and ANO movement head Andrej Babis said on Tuesday, adding that it did bring freedom, but also negative phenomena.

The Velvet Revolution was a series of events started in Narodni Street on November 17, 1989, by a brutal intervention by the communist police against a student march in remembrance of the students persecuted by the Nazis in 1939. The events led to the fall of the communist regime at the end of 1989.

“November 17 naturally brought fundamental changes – freedom of expression, freedom of travel and movement, and freedom to do business,” Babis said.

However, the revolution was not such a fundamental change as people in former Czechoslovakia supposed in 1989, and not all of their expectations have been fulfilled.

Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) spoke similarly.

“We can see that people pinned great hopes on November 1989, but not all of them have been fulfilled in the following years,” Sobotka said.

He said he is trying to exercise the post of prime minister so as to fulfill as much as possible people´s hopes that the government can function for the benefit of citizens and solve their everyday problems.

Babis warned of dividing society. “We should not abuse the holiday to divide society. Some politicians are trying to use it in their campaign, but this is bad. This holiday should be an opportunity for remembrance and for taking stock of what has been done,” Babis said.

Jan Zahradil, deputy chairman of the rightist opposition Civic Democrats (ODS) and MEP, similarly criticised the abusing of the holiday.

“This is not a holiday of demonstrations for (President Milos) Zeman or against Zeman, for Islam or against Islam, for migrants or against migrants,” he said.

“It is better to remember the legacy of the two dates, teh years 1939 and 1989, rather than attempt to make use of the holiday for presenting one´s own political opinions or one´s own political agenda,” Zahradil said.

Miroslav Kalousek, deputy chairman of the opposition conservative TOP 09, said the freedom of expression is one of the achievements of November 17, 1989.

“I perceive today as a very strong reminder of that freedom must be fought for every day because we can easily lose it,” Kalousek said.

Former president Vaclav Klaus, a longtime critic of the EU, said it will not be possible to express opinions in the EU in the future.

Sobotka disagreed with Klaus and said it is necessary to distinguish between freedom of expression and the effort to abuse it for spreading hatred.

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