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Wed 11 Nov 2009Czechs mark 1989 protests that broke grip of communism
THOUSANDS OF Czechs took to the streets of Prague yesterday to commemorate the start of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, six weeks of protests that toppled one of eastern Europe's most hardline communist regimes and carried dissidents into power.
Later, thousands of people marched along the route of that demonstration, and remembered how the security forces had brutally beaten the protesters, sparking false rumours that a student had been killed and stoking the public anger that would bring down the regime.
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