On March 25, 1988, thousands of Christian believers gathered at what is now Hviezdoslav square in Bratislava. They gathered in the capital of the then Slovak Socialist Republic to protest against the suppression of freedom of religion and human rights by the communist government. On Saturday, it will be 35 years since this “Good Friday” or “Candle manifestation” as this peaceful manifestation was called.
“We knew very well what the situation in Czechoslovakia was,” said Miroslav Kusy one of the signatories of Charter 77, an anti-communist manifesto of Czech and Slovak intellectuals. “Many times our compatriots from the west blamed us for not being radical enough or as revolutionary as, for example, activists in Poland. But it was easy to say that from abroad. We knew that the situation in Czechoslovakia was far more dangerous. Any public event would have ended in bloodshed.”
Politologist Juraj Marusiak explains: “Unlike Prague and the Czech Republic, the Slovak communist-controlled police did not intervene in similar gatherings. The only brutal attack against Christian demonstrations was held against the so called Candle manifestation 35 years ago.“
A participant in the protest and then underground activist Milan Martin Simecka thought that it would be a meeting of the regular dozen of dissidents. “I did not expect anything like that,” Milan Martin Simecka, an author and journalist, son of a persecuted author, says, recalling his memories of seeing thousands of protesters
Announcing the event that he organized for 25 March, 1988, was Frantisek Miklosko. He did it through the banned radio broadcast from abroad known as Radio Free Europe. “The protection of human rights is a program that cannot mislead you,” he said for RSI in March 2023. “Russians invaded Ukraine, they are killing and destroying the country, they are violating human rights. That’s why I support Ukraine because they defend themselves,” says one of the organisers of the Candle manifestation, Frantisek Miklosko. As he summed up, the event reveals the strength of the Slovak nation demonstrating its non-violent resistance. Comparing it to Gandhi, Miklosko adds that after 30 minutes of being attacked by dogs, batons, water cannons the winners were the people silently praying for their right to believe in God and thus meeting basic human rights.
Source: RSI
