Palach week, protest, demonstration, police, People´s Militia, arrest, Wenceslas Square, Prague
On the 20th anniversary of the death of Jan Palach, Czech university student who set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in Prague on January 16, 1969 as a political protest against the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, protests in his memory against the regime escalated into what would be called "Palach Week". The series of anticommunist demonstrations in Prague on January 15-21,1989, were suppressed by the police, who beat demonstrators and used water cannons, often catching passers-by in the fray. Palach Week is considered one of the catalyst demonstrations which preceded the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia 11 months later. Members of the People´s Militia, paramilitary units organised by the Communist party, arrest protester in Wenceslas Square on January 15, 1989. (CTK Photo/Zuzana Humpalova)
