By DPA
Prague : At least 100 people gathered in centre of Prague amid heavy scent of burning incense and candles to show their support for the protesters in Myanmar.
They placed candles in an archway on the Czech capital’s National Avenue under a memorial plague put up in honour of the student march that was violently suppressed Nov 17 1989 – an event that started the so-called Velvet Revolution that ushered in the fall of Czechoslovak communism.
“I disagree with the injustice that is taking place (in Myanmar),” said 25-year-old Jana Psenickova, one of the protestors. “It’s similar to what happened here. We came to express our support because Czechs have been through a similar situation.”
The dissident leader of the Velvet Revolution, former president Vaclav Havel, criticised in a newspaper article the international community for being “caught off guard – once again – by the rapid course that events have taken in Burma”.
“How many times and how many places has this now happened? Worse however is the number of countries that find it convenient to avert their eyes and ears from the deathly silence with which this Asian country chooses to present itself to the outside world,” Havel wrote.