Velvet Revolution dissidents warn against new threats to Czech freedom
Times have changed dramatically since Monsignor Viclav Mali endured interrogations, beatings and the indignities of being barred from the priesthood while being forced to clean toilets as the price of campaigning against Czechoslovakia's communist regime.
As a signatory and then spokesman for Charter 77, a civic initiative demanding respect for human rights that was led by, among others, the dissident playwright Viclav Havel, the clergyman was on the frontline of opponents targeted by the hated secret police. Yet this weekend, exactly 30 years after the Velvet Revolution began, ushering in the overthrow of the totalitarian system, Mali - now Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of Prague - is exhorting a new generation to fight new threats to their hard won freedom.
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