Prague, June 22 (CTK) – Activists from the Bez komunistu.cz (Without Communists) platform launched yesterday a campaign to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the judicial murder of Czech democratic politician Milada Horakova (1901-1950), organiser Petr Marek has told reporters.
The campaign will last the whole week during which various events are scheduled not only in Prague, but also in other Czech towns, such as Brno and Hradec Kralove, east Bohemia.
Every day at noon, volunteers will distribute tricolours with a piece of rope as a symbol of hanging, the way Horakova died, below St Wenceslas statue on Wenceslas Square in the centre of Prague.
On Wednesday, the platform will commemorate Horakova outside the St Ludmila Church on namesti Miru Square in Prague where she got married. A cage will be placed there as a symbol of prison.
The anniversary of Horakova’s death on June 27 is a significant day in the Czech Republic, marking the victims of the communist regime.
The activists will also continue with their chain hunger strike in memory of the victims of the communist regime in which more than 1000 people have participated so far.
On Thursday, a debate on child victims of the communist regime will be held in the Vaclav Havel Library.
Horakova, a lawyer by profession, gave up her mandate of Czechoslovak parliament deputy in protest against the Communist takeover in 1948. Later she unsuccessfully initiated a concerted effort of non-Communist parties in this respect.
She was sentenced to death on the basis of fabricated charges of treason and espionage, along with Jan Buchal, Zavis Kalandra and Oldrich Pecl, and executed on June 27, 1950 at the age of 48. She was the only woman executed in the country for political reasons.
The platform recently asked the Supreme State Attorney’s Office to look into the cases of the communist crimes the victims of which were children as well as other people buried at the Prague-Dablice cemetery.
MP Miroslava Nemcova (Civic Democrats, ODS) asked Culture Minister Daniel Herman (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) for help with the exhumation of the remains to identify the victims from the cemetery, her spokeswoman Eva Smerdova said.
It is not known where exactly Horakova is buried, Marek added.
