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Wreathes were laid on Wednesday at a memorial to Jan Opletal, a medical student who died on November 17, 1939. A procession to his grave in 1989 on International Students Day turned into the first demonstration of the Velvet Revolution, when students broke away from the authorized route and marched into the centre of Prague.

Fifteen years ago to the day student protestors took to the streets of Prague demanding an end to one-party rule, kicking off a process that would quickly - far more quickly than anyone expected - lead to the unravelling of Czechoslovakia's Communist regime. Music, too, played an important role: with the outcome of those turbulent days far from certain, tens of thousands demonstrated on Wenceslas Square, singing the civil rights anthem, 'We Shall Overcome'.

Wednesday is the 17th November - 15 years after the huge demonstrations in Prague that marked the beginning of the end for the communist system in Czechoslovakia. So today we bring you a special programme instead of our usual One on One. In yesterday's broadcast you had a chance to hear the children of former dissidents talk about their lives then and now. Today we talk to two different women who used to be on the other side of the fence - their parents were prominent Communist officials before 1989.

There are an unprecedented number of special events taking place this November 17th, a state holiday which marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Velvet Revolution. They include a service in memory of Jan Opletal, an anti-Communist reenactment of the 1989 demonstration quelled by riot police on Narodni Street and a big concert entitled Narodni Otherwise.

To mark the 15th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Nikola Brabenec set out to speak with the now full grown children of dissidents involved in Charter 77, the human rights declaration which brought together the dissident movement.

Prague university students who are - as they put it - disquieted by the current situation in society, mainly people's declining interest in public affairs, are going to stage a march on November 17 whose route will copy that of the student march 15 years ago, which triggered the anti-communist Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The organisers expect up to 10,000 people to join the event. Representatives of the student leaders of 1989 are expected to address the opening rally. The current students will read a declaration of their own, which will be available for the public to sign. Former anti-communist dissidents, including Catholic priest Tomas Halik and folk singer Jaroslav Hutka, will address the rally after the march ends on Prague's Wenceslas square.

The devastation wrought by the terrorist attacks in Istanbul, the fourteenth anniversary of the student protests which led to the fall of communism in the former Czechoslovakia and possible changes in the Czech government - those are the lead stories on today's front pages.

Monday was a holiday here in the Czech Republic, marking the fourteenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that put an unexpected end to forty years of Communist rule. Although the country's historians and politicians are still arguing over who should be credited for the Communists' downfall, the major role of the dissident movement has never really been questioned. But in an article for last Saturday's daily Mlada Fronta Dnes, Czech President Vaclav Klaus played down the role of the dissident elite, saying it was ordinary people, leading their

The Czech Republic has commemorated the fourteenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the peaceful movement that brought down the communist regime in 1989. Special ceremonies took place across the country on Monday to mark the anniversary. Top officials, including President Vaclav Klaus, laid flowers and lit candles on Narodni Street in Prague where the communist police brutally cracked down on a peaceful student demonstration on November 17th, 1989. The event triggered a series of demonstrations and strikes which eventually brought an end to four decades of communist rule in Czechoslovakia.

During the second half of the 1980s, the tension that was created after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion in Czechoslovakia had eased, especially after the introduction of Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika reforms in the Soviet Union. The Czechoslovak leadership, however, still headed by Gustav Husak who came to power after the '68 invasion, was suspicious of movements intended to "reform communism from within" and continued to embrace a hard line. But by 1988 there were organized demonstrations demanding change and with the fall of the Berlin Wall and