Czech President Miloš Zeman will not attend events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution

Prague, Sept 22 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman will not attend the upcoming public events marking the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that toppled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, and will prefer remembering the eventful November 1989 at home again, he told Blesk.cz server today.

He said the public celebrations will be led by people who did not attend the mass anti-communist protests 30 years ago.

“Those were wonderful days, I like remembering them. Perhaps this is why I am not going to attend the public remembrance events, where the Kaputin group, which I consider a fascist commando, will definitely appear again and throw flowers into dustbins,” Zeman said.

Last year, activist Otakar van Gemund from the Kaputin group threw into a dustbin the flowers which were laid at the Prague memorial to the November 17, 1989 events by PM Andrej Babis (ANO) and opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) leader Tomio Okamura, and also flowers sent in by Zeman.

Van Gemund argued that he considered the memorial in the centre of Prague a symbol of democracy in the country, while people like Babis and Okamura disrespected the rules of democracy.

Zeman today said he does not consider the communist riot police’s attack on a student demonstration in Prague’s Narodni street on November 17, 1989 a massacre, since massacre means an event with a high death toll.

The Prague clash claimed no lives, but a number of injuries.

Zeman said he had been present in Narodni at the time and saw no violence on the part of the police. He admitted that he could not see the crucial clash because he and other students found themselves in an adjacent street when it occurred.

rtj/dr