The Czech police have arrested 48 neo-Nazis who were causing disturbances as several thousand citizens marched in the capital's streets to relive the hours that brought the fall of communism 20 years ago.

On Tuesday, around 10,000 people took to the streets in Prague in commemoration of a student march of November 17, 1989 that triggered the human tidal wave that swept away the 41-year-old communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia.

On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Former president Vaclav Havel, President Vaclav Klaus, and Prime Minister Jan Fischer joined the crowd in laying flowers and lighting candles at a monument marking the site of a clash between security forces and the people in November 1989.

During the march, about 300 neo-Nazis denouncing the "corrupt liberal regime" in the country staged an illegal demonstration. They attacked police and passersby with clubs and threw stones at them and accused immigrants of destroying the country.

"We don't want to be Europe's cesspit," said far-right Workers Party chairman Tomas Vandas.

The police finally ejected the neo-Nazis mingled in the crowd of marchers and arrested 48 of them.

FTP/HGL