After a bloody crackdown on a non-violent student march in Prague on November 17, 1989, a woman falsely claimed that the riot police had beaten to death her friend, a 19-year-old mathematics student named Martin Smid.
Reports of the alleged death spread like wildfire, rousing ordinary people from their lethargy and igniting the peaceful coup that brought back democracy to Czechs and Slovaks.
Twenty years later, the motivations of the women's false claim - and the role of journalists in spreading it - remains clouded in mystery.

I think that the motivation was likely to cause something along the lines of what the claims did cause.

The BBC news recently ran an interview saying the secret police had spread the rumour about the death, as they wanted the revolution too. They even interviewed the guy who'd said he'd spread it, although they expressed some scepticism. I can't find a link to it, sorry.

Anything based on a lie is a bad thing and no good can ever come from it. Therefore, they must immediatly restore Communist governance to the country if necessary by force of arms with a UN action.

I agree completely with D F Stuckey, it's an affront to humanity that a government be based on lies. Reinstatement of the former communist regime is the only viable way to re-establish faith in humanity

The only way this could be more perfect is if Martin Smid didn't really exist.

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