(The following article is from the June 1-15, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

On May 14, the Czech Communist Youth Union (KSM) released the following information on the latest attacks against their organization.

On March 19, a Municipal Court of Prague rejected the administrative protest delivered by the KSM against the decision of the Ministry of Interior of Czech Republic on the dissolution of the Communist Youth Union (KSM). The official reason for banning of the KSM was its programmatic goal to replace private ownership of the means of production with collective ownership, and also its work to convince young people about the necessity to struggle for another society not based on capitalist principles. This attack is a culmination of a lengthy anti-Communist campaign.

     The state power, represented by the police, also took the next steps towards the fascization of our society. On May Day, a group of Communist Youth Union activists during a May Day celebration in a city of Brno was attacked by the police, who confiscated materials and flags with the KSM logo. The Czech media reported this scandalous step of the state repressive policy.

     Two weeks ago, a non-communist artistic group, Guma Guar, officially opened an exhibition against the KSM ban in a gallery in Prague's historic Old Town Hall. This group strongly rejected the ban as an attack against fundamental democratic rights and presented in the Gallery the campaigns of the KSM, expressions of solidarity with the KSM received from a vast number of foreign organisations and individuals, and a movie about the KSM. A video report from the exhibition can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYN5K5rqzrY. Precisely and symbolically on the May Day this exhibition was destroyed by a brutal attack of anti-communists who wore black clothes and balaclavas covering their faces. The director of the Prague Gallery kept silent about this violent anti-communist attack for 4 days. The artistic group wanted to reopen the exhibition after the attack, but the Gallery decided to abolish the exhibition.

     We are witnessing anticommunist oppression both by the state and by various fascist and extreme rightist groups, as well as a number of physical attacks against KSM activists in the streets.

     The KSM appeals to all democratic forces to oppose the banning of the KSM by the Ministry of Interior and the anti-Communist and anti-democratic tendencies of the current state power. In spite of the bans and persecutions, the KSM assures all its members and friends that the young communists will not back off their struggle for the interests of the majority of the young generation, the students, apprentices, young workers and unemployed people, and the struggle for socialism.

     - Veronika Pazderova (Sykorova), vice-chairperson of the KSM.