Public Against Violence (Slovak: Verejnosť proti násiliu, VPN) was a political movement established in Bratislava, Slovakia in November 1989.

[5] Other early leaders included Catholic dissident Ján Čarnogurský whose trial was stopped during the revolution,[3] František Mikloško and Miroslav Kusy,[6] Vladimír Mečiar and the ex-leader of the Communist Party during the Prague Spring Alexander Dubček.

[4][8] The government initially had an 11 to 10 majority of non-Communists, but this grew as people left the Communist party, while Václav Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia and Alexander Dubček became the chair of the Federal Assembly.

[11] Going into the first free elections in June 1990 Public Against Violence wanted greater powers for Slovakia, but backed continuing the union between the Czechs and Slovaks.

[2] Candidates for Public Against Violence at the 1990 election included the prime minister of Czechoslovakia Marián Čalfa and Alexander Dubček, the ex-leader of the Communist Party during the Prague Spring.

[2] In the lead up to the 1990 elections opinion polls showed Public Against Violence with between 18 and 25% support in Slovakia, behind the Christian Democratic Movement on 25 to 30%.

[16] However, on election night one of the founders of Public Against Violence, deputy chairman Ján Budaj, announced his withdrawal from politics as he had been pressed to co-operate with the secret police in the 1970s.

[19] As time passed from the Velvet Revolution, the approval rating for both Civic Forum and Public Against Violence dropped from 60% in February 1990 to 38% in October 1990.

[25] On the 23 April 1991 Vladimír Mečiar was replaced as Prime Minister of Slovakia by the leader of the Christian Democratic Movement Ján Čarnogurský.

[29] Public Against Violence finally became a political party in October 1991 and renamed itself as Civic Democratic Union (Občianska demokratická únia, ODÚ) in March 1992.