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Monday June 20th

Pink tank no. 23

is arriving at Vltava river next to Střelecký ostrov.

Tank no. 23, a gift from the Red Army, was a symbol of liberation of Prague from Nacist occupation for many years. Official version of that time said it had been the first tank, that had arrived at Prague and had fighten until the absolute end of the SWW without any demage and this heroic act had merit the tank no.23 honourable place at the Soviet Tankmen Square. The truth is different. That first tank was only an iron huddle at the end. Soviet generals wanted to give more representive gift to the Czech nation it was why they gave us a new, bigger, totally different type and battle power tank with a gun barrel aiming west to dangerous imperialists.
The occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968 and subsequent "temporary" settlement of Soviet troops at many places in Czechoslovkia and the tightening of Communist propaganda changed perception of this memorial by Czechoslovaks. It became a symbol of occupation.
During the April night in 1991 (just before last Soviet troops left our country) artist David černý with several friends painted the whole tank in pink. It evoked heated discussions and still does. Is it a symbol of the end of occupation and that we don´t want any other any more or is it a act of vandalism and ingratitude on liberators? It was and is the first case. The tank is not a national landmark any more and is allocated in Lešany Military Museum. We don´t think the SWW liberators deserve a monument remembering their heroic act but it musn´t be blasted by any propaganda.

The pink tank no. 23 can be seen at Vltava river until July 1st. Organized in cooperation with Military History Institute.

TUESDAY JUNE 21ST

The exhibition REAL BELARUS (SKUTEČNÉ BĚLORUSKO) openning

At cafe Mlýnská kavárna, until July 27th
The exhibition presents several Belarus personalities who refuse to accept Lukasenko´s regime

A little sample of the exhibition:
Nasta Palažanka/ Наста Палажанка

Recently she celebrated her eighteenth birthday. Yet already in May 2007, as a tenth grade pupil, she got formal reprimand from a court. She was the only girl, also underage, between another five activists prosecuted for membership and activity in an unregistered organization Malady Front (Yong Front).

Come to acquaint the others.

Wednesday June 22nd

The exhibition LOVE AND FREEDOM FOR IMPRISONED openning

Around more than 200,000 political prisoners are known to be prisoned in 6 concentration camps in North Korea, respectively  located in Gaechun (concentration camp No 14), Yoduk (No 15), Hwasung (No 16), Bukchang (No 18), Hoeryung (No 22) and Chungjin (No 25) . North Korea regime has been putting not only political prisoner in these camps but also all his or her family members by applying for involvement system and imposing harsh forced labor, public execution, torture and violence on them.
The North Korean regime is denies the existence of political prison camps, where the prisoners are treated as slaves in conditions that have no analogues in last fifty years in the world. A comparison of actual satellite images with older from 2002 shows that the camps are still growing in size.  

The exhibition LOVE AND FREEDOM FOR THE IMPRISONED is prepared by South Korea human right NGO "Free The NK Gulag" to show the reality of the camp to the world. The NGO is composed of South Korean Human right activists led by a few former North Korea political prisoners who had succeeded in escaping from the camp and defected to South Korea. The exhibition includes pictures described by former prisoners, such as Kim Hae Suk who was prisoned for 28 years in Bukchang Concentration Camp and Shin Dong Hyeuk who was prisoned in Gaechun Concentration Camp for 24 years, with their hands, show what is going on in the camp. Also the pictures show many scars on their body vividly demonstrating how they were tortured. 

Thursday June 23rd - Saturday June 25th

UNITED ISLANDS festival

 
We recommend you:
24.6. A-N-G featuring dj Besho (Afganistan) - Střelecký island
24.6. RUSSKAJA (Austria / Russia) - Střelecký island
25.6. !DELA DAP featuring Gipsy.cz (Austria / Czech) - Střelecký island
25.6. PORNO PARA RICARDO (Cuba) - Střelecký island

Monday June 27th

EUROPE - WHOLE AND FREE?

Two Decades since the End of the Warsaw Pact

in cooperation with Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces of the Czech Republic.

The conference will take place in the same Grand Hall of the Czernin Palace which hosted the ceremony of dissolving of the Warsaw Pact twenty years ago. This Hall shall once again welcome some of the major actors who participated in the historical decision from both sides of the former Iron Curtain. Their views of the developments that led to, formed and followed this milestone event in the contemporary European history shall be included in the first day of the conference focusing on the foreign policy perspective (June 27). The special guests of the conference will be joined by other practitioners as well as scholars active in the foreign policy debates of today. The purpose is to examine the major change in the European security architecture as an impulse that might be with us until the present day. In this broader perspective, the past and future shape of the transatlantic and Eurasian institutional setups in the area of security and defence, relations between Russia and the Western world, including former Warsaw Pact members, now members of NATO, the ability of NATO and Europe to respond jointly with Russia to contemporary security challenges as well as the possibility of NATO’s development into a Pan-European security structure shall be discussed.
The first day of the conference will be closed by an evening reception in the gardens of the Wallenstein Palace hosted by the Czech Senate. The evening will feature an opening of a unique exhibition of photographs co-produced with the Military History Institute in Prague. The exhibition will present not only the historical act as such, but also its perceptions by Czech citizens.
The closing sessions on June 28 will revisit some of the issues discussed during the first day of the conference from a historical perspective. It will also offer an in-depth analysis of several focus themes, such as the purpose and the internal structure of the Warsaw Pact, the impact of the withdrawal of Soviet troops on Russia and its western neighbours and the reasons which led former Pact members to join NATO.


Invitation was accepted by many significant personalities:
Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, president of Latvia (1999 – 2007)
Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Vice Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany (1974 – 1992)
Alexander Bessměrtnych, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR (1991)
Géza Jeszenszky, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary (1990 - 1994)
Władysław Bartoszewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland (1995, 2000 - 2001)
Malcolm Rifkind, Minister of Defence (1992 – 1995) andMinister of Foreign Affaris of Great Britain (1995 – 1997) Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Minister of Defence of France (1988 - 1991)
František Mikloško, Chairman of the Slovak National Council (1990 - 1992)
Mirosław Jasiński, founder of the Polish – Czechoslovak Solidarity
Army general Vladimír Lobov from Russia, commander of the united armed forces of the Warsaw Pact (1989 – 1991)
and many others.

Conferencion can be watched on-line live or recorded on  www.mzv.cz/wpc.video

A Brotherly Hug?

utill 31 August 2011 in the gardens of Valdštejn

The Warsaw Pact existed for a long thirty six years; it was an army pact of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. Its only army action was the suppression of a freedom fighting in the Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Prague then became a place of violence hidden under false cover of brothers´ help against contra revolution. The Soviet soldiers occupied Czechoslovakia for a long twenty three years. After the fall of the communist regimes in the Eastern Europe on 1 July 1991 right in Prague the representatives of new democratic states gathered to decide on abolition of the Warsaw Pact and finishing the process of disintegration of the “Eastern” block.
The exhibition "BROTHERLY HUG?" prepared in cooperation with the Military History Institute and the public benefit organisation OPONA shows the essential milestones of building the Warsaw Pact, its army plans, entry of the Warsaw Pact armies into the Czechoslovakian territory in 1968 and following occupation of the territory. The authors of the text part, Ivo Pejčoch and Prokop Tomek, are trying to show the historical connections of the fall of the iron curtain and following splitting up of the Soviet block structures.
Another part of the exhibition prepared by Karel Cudlín and Vojtěch Hönig documents the Soviet army stay in the Czechoslovakia through photographs of their departure in contrast with the current photos and quotes of local personal observers.
The exhibition is organised under auspices of the 1st Vice-chairman of the CR Parliament, Přemysl Sobotka.

Tuesday June 28th

EUROPE - WHOLE AND FREE?

Two Decades since the End of the Warsaw Pact, international conference to remember the 20th anniversary of the disestablishment of the Warsaw Pact.

FREEDOM FAIR

Wenceslas Square (under the statue of St. Wenceslas)

COME AND FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP NOW!
 

Wenceslas Square is the symbolic place in the city center, which is recognized as a place of public meetings, manifestations and demonstrations, which have always accompanied major historical change in our country. The Week of Freedom part of program, FREEDOM FAIR, includes exhibitions, film screenings, discussions and international meeting of individuals, movements and organizations that play locally and internationally significant role in promoting human rights.


 
List of exhibitions:

CALENDAR OF TOTALITARIANISM (June 16th to 17th 2011)

YEAR BY YEAR (June 28th to July 27th 2011)

Kampa Park, Café Mlýnská


 
REAL BELARUS (June 21st to July 20th 2011)

an exhibition of the People in Need, updated to mark the Week of Freedom, brings lives of people protesting against the Lukashenko dictatorship

Kampa Park, Café Mlýnská


 
LOVE AND FREEDOM FOR IMPRISONED

North Korea's Concentration Camps Memoires (June 22nd to July 1st 2011), passage of the Lucerna Palace. Exhibition shows how the North Korean regime has for political and other prisoners escaped through drawings surviving prisoners.
 

Another program will be published soon, watch these pages or the Week of Freedom in the social network Facebook.

Wednesday June 29th

FREEDOM FAIR

 international meeting of personalities, organizations and initiatives enforcing observation of human rights
 

CONCERT FOR FREEDOM

SURPRISE....

Thursday June 30th - Friday July 1st

RONALD REAGAN: Inspired Freedom

Czernin Palace

President Reagan´s bold and straightforward approach was not the only factor that brought down communism in Central and Eastern Europe. But there is little doubt that without it the road to freedom would have been far more complicated and uncertain. What were the influences, ideas and principles that shaped Reagan´s policy? And are there now, when the global leadership of the West seems in question, any foreign policy lessons that we can learn from the Reagan era?

Patronage over the conference took Miroslava Nemcova, President Chamber of Deputies, Karel Schwarzenberg, Minister of Foreign Affaris and Alexandr Vondra, Minister of Defence.

Organized by Prague Security Studies Institute.