Former political prisoners, relatives, prison service representatives and public personalities attended a commemorative act for the victims of the Czechoslovak Communist regime and especially Milada Horakova, a Czechoslovak democratic politician executed after a show trial in 1950, on Monday.

Horakova was the only woman to have been executed for political reasons in the 1950s.

The ceremony was held on the 66th anniversary of her death in the Pankrac prison in Prague.

The place where Horakova and other political prisoners were executed is honoured by a big cross before the old prison hospital.

On Monday, the participants in the event laid wreathes and flowers and observed a moment of silence there.

The national anthem and a song for the war dead was played.

Horakova, a lawyer by profession, gave up her mandate of Czechoslovak parliament deputy in protest against the Communist takeover in 1948. Later she unsuccessfully initiated a concerted effort of non-Communist parties in this respect.

She was sentenced to death on the basis of fabricated charges of treason and espionage, along with Jan Buchal, Zavis Kalandra and Oldrich Pecl, and executed on June 27, 1950 at the age of 48.

Deputy Justice Minister Petr Jaeger said the commemorative act had warned of one of the darkest periods of Czechoslovak history, also stressing the huge courage of human spirit.

"After February 1948 [the Communist take-over], the political system enabled its representatives to decide with tremendous cruelty on entire groups of population and individuals who were not ready to accept the totalitarian regime," Jaeger said.

"It enabled the representatives of the criminal regime to say who was the 'class enemy' and due to this, also a traitor," Jaeger said.

Horakova became a symbol of the fight against political arbitrariness, he added.