Reaction To The Trial and Recognition of Protesters
Lawyers for the defence had shown that there was no criminal intent in the demonstration held by the protesters, but despite this, the protesters received harsh sentences of up to several years in prison.
It was claimed by Yuliy Kim that the sentences had already been written down before the trial. Yuliy Kim wrote the song "Ilyich", which mentions Yuri Andropov's and Leonid Brezhnev's anger regarding the demonstration, and names three of the participants: Pavel Litvinov, Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Larisa Bogoraz.
Public recognition of the protesters had to wait 40 years. During the conflict in South Ossetia, August 2008, the former president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, expressed his sympathies for the protesters of 1968. Czech Premier Mirek Topolánek recognized the heroism of the protesters with awards. Yet, no similar recognition is reported from the side of the Russian government. Instead, 24 August 2008, the similar demonstration with the slogan For your freedom and ours happened at the same place.
Read more about this topic: 1968 Red Square Demonstration
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