TWENTY-FIVE years after the protests that helped launch the Velvet Revolution in what is now Slovakia, people in the country see November 17, 1989 as one of the positive events of their history, but remain wary of social and job insecurity, according to a survey by the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO) in cooperation with the Focus polling agency and the Czech Public Opinion Research Centre.
The 1989 Velvet (zamatová) or Gentle (nežná) Revolution in then-Czechoslovakia came as totalitarian regimes in neighbouring countries like East Germany, Hungary or Poland were already collapsing, clearing a path for building a society based on the principles of rule of law, civic participation, fundamental rights and freedoms, minority rights and protection of the environment.
President Andrej Kiska will mark the 25th anniversary of the fall of the communist regime along with presidents of the Visegrad Four group, Bronislaw Komorowski of Poland, János Áder of Hungary and Miloš Zeman of the Czech Republic. Kiska has also invited to Bratislava German President Joachim Gauck as well as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the TASR newswire reported.
Read also:
Civil society still lagging
Student veterans recall 1989
History of revolution
Shelves are fuller and wallets are fatter
Slovak art is more individual, "optional"
