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Czechs bid farewell to Vaclav Havel

Thousands of silent mourners have accompanied the body of Vaclav Havel through central Prague as the Czech
Republic began three days of national mourning for the icon of the Velvet Revolution

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22 Dec 2011

Thousands of silent mourners have accompanied the body of Vaclav Havel through central Prague as the Czech
Republic began three days of national mourning for the icon of the Velvet Revolution.

About 10,000 mourners mostly in black, some carrying Czech or Slovak flags, joined a solemn procession taking the former president's coffin from a church through narrow cobbled streets to Prague Castle, the seat of Czech presidents, today. Havel died on Sunday aged 75 and a number of foreign leaders attended his state funeral yesterday.

The
dissident playwright led the nation through the bloodless 1989 Velvet Revolution that toppled Soviet-backed communism in then Czechoslovakia.He went on to serve as president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992 and subsequently the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003 when the former Czechoslovak federation split peacefully into two states.

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