Unfairly Prosecuted Persons Day in Slovakia

On this day male monasteries were dissolved and friars were interned in Communist Czechoslovakia.

In Slovakia, 13 April is settled as a Remembrance Day to unfairly prosecuted people. This symbolic action has its roots in the country's communist past; when during the night between 13 April and 14 April 1950, which is also known as the Barbarian night, members of the state police broke into 56 male monasteries.

The plan labelled as 'Action K' was supposed to dissolve male monasteries and imprison the monks. Totalitarian ideology opposed all religion and the communist government decided to eliminate those bearing visible testimony to it.

The assaults on the monasteries by armed forces continued throughout April 1950, with more than 2000 monks and priests being dragged out and transported into concentration 'monasteries'. The same happened in August to all the women convents. The monastic life was renewed in 1968, when the General Prosecutor's Office announced that there isn't a law which would forbid them. The final easement of the situation with monasteries in Czechoslovakia came only after the Velvet revolution in 1989.