On August 18, 1988, French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish and American Radicals unfurled an enormous banner in St. Wenceslas Square, on the twentieth anniversary of the Soviet invasion of the country. They were all arrested and banished for life. On August 23, the same Square was the theatre for the great demonstration of the people of Prague: Miroslav Pavel, spokesman for the government, denounced the role played by the Radical Party in "stirring up public feeling about what happened on August 21".