Prague, Nov 17 (CTK) – It is always vital to care for freedom and democracy, to gain support for them, which is not always easy, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) said when paying respects to the November 17, 1989 memorial in Prague on Thursday.
The Day of Struggle for Freedom and Democracy on November 17 commemorates student demonstrations after the Nazi occupation in 1939 and against the Communist regime in 1989.
Communist police cordoned off a student protest march in the Prague centre on November 17, 1989 and then brutally beat up its participants.
The police violence triggered the events that overthrew the Communist regime in late November 1989.
Sobotka was followed by Finance Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) and Senate chairman Milan Stech (CSSD).
Sobotka said since many people were not doing well, they were angry with democracy.
If freedom and democracy are to keep support for them, it is vital for the democratic state to have a strong social dimension, he added.
Sobotka said the democratic system had not fulfilled all the expectations of November 1989.
“Still I think the decision was right,” he added.
Babis said freedom and democracy were the biggest values.
“I do not think that freedom and democracy are jeopardised, as some are trying to tell the public, creating a bad mood,” he told journalists.
Babis stressed that people could elect both the parliament and president.
“We should mainly fight for a good mood, society should be linked,” he added.
At present, there is not the time in which the president and the government would have to be changed in the squares, Babis said.
Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky , Regional Development Minister Karla Slechtova, Justice Minister Robert Pelikan and Prague Mayor Adriana Krnacova (all ANO) all came to the memorial.
