LATEST UPDATE: OCTOBER 2002

Slovakia’s improving political position is partly reflected in the conditions and position of its ethnic minorities. While the situation of the Hungarian minority, whose representatives are part of the new government, has ceased to be a source of conflict, Romanies to suffer physical abuse and legal and social discrimination, despite several new pro-Romany government initiatives.

Although, as far as can be ascertained, there were few antisemitic incidents, expressions of antisemitism remain, often camouflaged in propaganda promoting the rehabilitation of the Slovak war-time fascist state and its leading personalities. However, the fact that state and high-ranking political functionaries are no longer actively involved in this campaign is a recent positive development.

Demographic data (unless otherwise stated, from the 2001 Census, conducted in May 2001)

Total population: 5.4 million

Jewish population: c. 3,000 (mainly in Bratislava and Kosice), although, in the most recent census, conducted in May 2001, only 218 declared their ‘nationality’ to be Jewish

Romany population: 1.7 per cent, according to the 2001 Census, but NGOs estimate the number to be between 4 and 7 per cent

Other minorities: Hungarians 9.7 per cent, Czechs 0.8 per cent, Ruthenians 0.4 per cent, Ukrainians 0.2 per cent, Germans 0.1 per cent

Religion: Roman Catholic 68.7 per cent, atheist 13 per cent, Evangelic Church of Augsburg Affiliation 6.9 per cent, Orthodox 4.1 per cent, Reformed Christian 2 per cent

Political data

Political system: parliamentary democracy with a unicameral parliament, the 150-member Narodna rada Slovenskej republiky (National Council of the Slovak Republic)

Head of state: President Rudolf Schuster, elected for a five-year term in May 1999

Government: following elections in September 2002, a coalition government was formed composed of four centre-right parties—the Slovenska demokraticka a krest'anska unia (SDKU, Slovak Democratic and Christian Union), the Krest'anskodemokraticke hnutie  (KDH, Christian Democratic Movement), the Strana mad'arskej koalicie (SMK, Hungarian Coalition Party) and the Aliancia noveho obcana (ANO, New Citizen Alliance)—under the continuing leadership of Prime Minister Mikulas Zurinda (SDKU, formerly SKD). The SDKU and the KDH both emerged out of the dissolution of the previous ruling party, the Slovenska demokraticka koalicia (SDK, Slovak Democratic Coalition).

Major opposition party: the Hnutie za demokraticke Slovensko (HZDS, Movement for Democratic Slovakia), led by former Prime MinisterVladimir Meciar, which won 19.5 per cent in the 2002 elections, making it Slovakia’s most popular party.

Results of 20-1 September 2002 parliamentary election (seats won in 1998 in brackets):

Next elections: May/June 2004 (presidential), September 2006 (parliamentary)

Economic data (unless otherwise stated, from World Bank)

GDP: US$19.1 billion (2000); US$20.5 billion (2001)

GDP growth: 2.2 per cent (2001); 3.3. per cent (2001)

Inflation: 6.5 per cent (2000); 5.3 per cent (2001)

Unemployment: 19.2 per cent (end 2000); 18.6 per cent (end 2001); 16.4 per cent (end October 2002)  (Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic)

For 1,000 years Slovakia was part of the Hungarian kingdom. In 1918 it became part of Czechoslovakia. The mother tongue of most Jews was Hungarian or German. Reference to this fact, together with the theme of the typically more favourable position of the Jews, developed into the principal slogans of Slovak antisemitism.

During the Second World War the pro-Nazi so called 'Ludak' regime of President Jozef Tiso, a Catholic priest, not only acceded to the deportation of Jews but also paid Nazi Germany for every Jew deported. (Slovakia was the only country that paid Nazi Germany to deport its Jews.) Of the 137,000 Jews in pre-war Slovakia, 72,000 perished in death camps and another 40,000 perished in the deportations from the southern part of the country, which was occupied by Hungary during the war. Most Jewish survivors of the Holocaust left the country in 1948–9, after the Communist takeover, and, again, after the Soviet occupation in 1968.

Following the collapse of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia at the end of the 1980s, and the subsequent break-up of the country in 1993, the rights of the Slovak Jewish minority have been fully respected.

In the first years of independence, controversy was provoked by some commemorations of the war-time Slovak Nazi puppet state and its leader Jozef Tiso. However, with the exception of the SNS, all the major parties in Slovakia of recent years have publicly distanced themselves from the glorification of the Tiso regime and have condemned fascism and antisemitism. In 1999 the Slovak government clearly stated that modern Slovakia was ‘neither ideologically nor politically a continuation of the 1939–1945 Slovak state’, which, it said, was ‘based on bad political and moral principles’.

In March 1999 the opposition party SNS issued a statement stating that 15 March, the day on which, in 1939, the war-time Slovak state was established, marks ‘the most important step in the modern history of the Slovak nation’. In the same month, the party’s leader Jan Slota, addressing a meeting in the northern Slovakian town of Zilina, where he is mayor, expressed ‘his gratitude’ to Jozef Tiso. Some 800 people marked the anniversary of the foundation of the war-time Slovak state by taking part in a rally in Bratislava organized by the ‘cultural organization’ Matica Slovenska. Later in the month, at an SNS meeting in Humenne, eastern Slovakia, Anna Malikova claimed that ‘Hungarians and Jews cannot rewrite history’.

In July 1999 the Slovak government approved a draft bill that provides for token financial compensation for survivors of Nazi concentration camps and their relatives. The Jewish community criticized the bill for not covering those who had to hide during the Holocaust. In parliament, Minister of Justice Jan Carnogursky claimed that ‘for financial reasons’ the government decided to compensate only those who had ‘suffered the most’. In October 1999 the parliamentary human rights committee acceded to demands made by the Association of Jewish Religious Communities (UCZNO) and the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters and amended the compensation bill to include persons held in prisoner-of-war camps and those persecuted because of their race or religion.

In August 2001 the government decided to set up a commission to determine how to compensate Holocaust survivors and the Jewish community for property seized during the war. The head of the commission, Deputy Prime Minister Pal Csaky, said: ‘There are fewer and fewer of those that survived’, adding that ‘it is time for Slovakia to deal with its past’. He also said that the compensation issue was ‘more sensitive’ in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic because Slovakia collaborated with Nazi Germany. Frantisek Alexander, chairman of the UCZNO, welcomed the government’s decision.

During a visit to Israel in February 2000, the Slovak president Rudolf Schuster apologized for Slovakia’s role in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. He also said that he wanted Slovakia to established a Holocaust Day on 10 September, the date the country’s war-time Nazi puppet government introduced the so called ‘Jewish code’.

In February 2000 the city council of Zilina—whose mayor is Jan Slota—announced its intention of unveiling a memorial plaque to Jozef Tiso. UCZNO protested the proposal, saying the plaque would glorify a ‘symbol of Slovak fascism’. The US Embassy in Bratislava also criticized the ‘intention to rehabilitate Tiso’. SNS deputy chairman Viliam Oberhauser said his party had no objection to the proposed memorial plaque, adding that Tiso was a ‘historical personality who deserved such a gesture’. Nonetheless, confronted with protests in Slovakia and abroad, the Zilina council postponed the unveiling of the plaque indefinitely.

In August 2000 the National Bank of Slovakia planned to issue a coin commemorating the children’s book writer Ludo Ondrejov, who allegedly participated in the war-time ‘Aryanization drive’. The bank’s board later decided not to issue the silver coin, citing Ondrejov’s role in the take-over of a bookshop that had been confiscated from its Jewish owners.

In October 2000 UCZNO sued Germany to recover funds paid by Slovakia’s war-time government to cover the costs of the deportation of Slovak Jews. (Slovakia is the only country that paid Nazi Germany to deport its Jews.) A court of justice in Berlin in March 2001 ruled that UCZNO did not have the rights to demand compensation on behalf of Slovak Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, and that the matter could only be settled ‘within an international legal framework’. In June 2001 the Slovak government decided not to interfere in the dispute, but affirmed that UCZNO was ‘explicitly authorized to make all claims and take all necessary legal action’.

In January 2001 the minister of agriculture, Pavel Koncos, said he was ready to accede to the demand of UCZNO that land originally owned by Holocaust victims should be returned to their heirs. Koncos also agreed that rent collected from land leased by the state and formerly owned by Jews who perished in the Holocaust be used for the conservation of the Slovak Jewish cultural heritage. UCZNO said it did not know how much land belonged to Holocaust victims who left no heirs, and the Slovak Land Fund claimed that it had no registry from which it could compile the data.

In September 2001 a series of commemorative events began in Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia, marking sixty years since the passing of the so-called ‘Jewish code’, which eventually led to the deportation and the extermination of most of Slovakia’s 70,000 Jews. President Schuster, speaking at one of the ceremonies, said that ‘the genocide of the Jewish people during the Second World War must be constantly remembered, because many people have started to underestimate’ its extent and its lessons. Schuster called for work among young people to explain the Holocaust and said punishment for Holocaust denial and for racial or religion offences must be stiffened. He said Slovak legislation against such offences was ‘weak’.

In November 2001 UCZNO criticized President Schuster for supporting the beatification of Roman Catholic Bishop Jan Vojtassak, proposed to the Vatican by the Slovak Catholic Church. Jewish leaders say Vojtassak could have saved some of the 80,000 Slovak Jews who perished in Nazi extermination camps, and that the bishop served on the war-time state council and knew of the decision to deport the Jews, but refrained from either warning them or making any public protest. In response, Marian Gavenda, spokesman for the Confederation of Slovak Bishops, said Vojtassak had saved the lives of many Jews during the war and that testimonies of those rescued were attached to the beatification proposal.

In January 2002 one of Slovakia’s high state honours was awarded to Jozef Milus, a diplomat who had served the war-time Slovak state. President Schuster awarded him the Pribina’s Cross for lifelong work in the struggle for Slovak independence. Slovak historians and Jewish community leaders expressed dismay over the award. Jaroslav Franek of the UCZNO called the award ‘a mistake’. According to the president’s office, Schuster ‘only followed the recommendation made by Justice Minister Jan Carnogursky’, whose father also served the Tiso regime. In an interview with the daily Sme Carnogursky said that, ‘when assessing contemporary Slovak citizens, one should not display one-sided political attitudes’. Matica Slovenska expressed outrage over the protest, calling it proof of ‘total intolerance’.

Anti-Romany and anti-Hungarian attitudes are regularly further inflamed by remarks by Slovak public figures, mainly by the politicians from SNS and PSNS.

Romanies

Violent attacks on Romanies by far-right skinheads and other youths remain a major factor in inter-ethnic conflicts. Human rights monitors continue to accuse the police of being reluctant to act on the testimony of witnesses to attacks on Romanies. They further report that police use counter-charges to put pressure on Romany victims of police brutality to drop their complaints, and that medical doctors and investigators co-operate with the police by refusing to describe accurately the injuries involved.

In July 1999 representatives of nineteen Romany associations released a statement declaring that Slovakia’s Romany minority was ‘strongly concerned about its security’ following ‘ill-considered’ allegations by local politicians on the mass emigration of Slovak Romanies to Finland. The statement rejected the allegations that the Romanies had become ‘the enemy of the Slovak people’ and that their exodus was designed to ‘complicate Slovakia’s [bid for] accession to the EU’.

In April 2000 Amnesty International expressed concerns over raids conducted by the Slovak police against Romany citizens. In its report Amnesty documented instances in which the police had entered Romany homes without warrants, damaging property and insulting, physically abusing and even torturing Romanies.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in August 2000 praised Slovakia for some human rights improvements but criticized it for its treatment of Romanies. It expressed concern about ‘allegations that the police and prosecutors had failed to investigate acts of racially motivated violence promptly and effectively, and had been reluctant to identify racial motive behind attacks’. Slovakia was urged ‘to take all necessary measures to ensure that Romanies enjoyed the full right to health and health care’.

Romany activists in Slovakia sent an open letter to President Rudolf Schuster, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda and the parliament, protesting the fact that there will be no Romany language version of the questionnaire to be used in the population census in May 2001, and calling the census ‘discriminatory’. The Slovak government later decided to add the Romany language to the list of minority languages in which the census was to be conducted.

In the city of Kosice, eastern Slovakia, in March 2001 Romany parents asked the local television to broadcast their complaints about a teacher from a special school for mentally disabled children who had brutally beaten Romany children. Many Romany children in Slovakia are sent to special schools, even though they are not mentally ill.

Also in March 2001 some 100 Romanies from the village of Hermanovce, eastern Slovakia, signed a petition accusing police officers from nearby Jarovnice of years of racist behaviour and physical and mental abuse. According to the group, the police in Jarovnice had been humiliating and terrorizing local Romanies and even used physical torture to force Romanies to confess to crimes they had not committed. According to a police spokeswoman the charges in the petition were not sufficiently concrete.

In May 2001 the Slovak government approved measures aimed at cutting down the emigration of Slovakia’s Romany minority, by deciding to introduce stricter conditions for issuing passports to ‘citizens suspected of trying to emigrate’ and to introduce stricter conditions on the payment of welfare aid. The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (known as the US Helsinki Commission) criticized the Slovak government; its co-chairman Christopher Smith said he was ‘extremely disappointed’ by the fact that, despite Slovakia’s ‘enormous human rights progress’, the passport restrictions would ‘deny some Slovak citizens the right to leave and return to their country, one of the most fundamental rights recognized by the Helsinki process.

In October 2001 a report by the Open Society Foundation (OSF) on the situation of Romanies in Slovakia said that discrimination against the Romany population was persistent, and that some Slovak politicians were guilty of expressing racist opinions about Romanies. It also criticized the fact that most Romanies did not have a permanent address and, consequently, could not participate in elections or benefit from their rights pertaining to education and health care. A spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Csaky, who is in charge of human rights and minority issues, said he doubted that the report reflected Slovak realities. Klara Orgovanova, the government commissioner for Romany affairs, said she welcomed the report because it would advance solutions to Romany problems, but added that the OSF tended to be overly critical and that the report included many inaccuracies. Orgovanova had previously worked for the OSF.

On the other hand, the then-Slovak government has increased its financial and political support for the Romany community by regularly allocating large sums of money to special projects. In November 2001, for example, the government earmarked another 16 million SKK (c.  US$400,000) for pro-Romany programmes. Nonetheless, Romanies, especially in eastern Slovakia, live in great poverty. According to official governmental sources (July 2001), there are 616 Romany settlements in Slovakia, which include 130,000 people of whom only 2,100 are employed. Only 104 of these settlements have electricity and a mere 247 have running water.

In November 2001 the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) sent a letter to Slovak Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda to express concern about the harassment of Romany rights activists in Slovakia. In one case, according to ERRC, Columbus Igboanusi, an activist lawyer of Nigerian origin, had been the target of break-ins at his flat and office, of leaflets distributed by the Slovak extreme right, and of a criminal complaint by the head of a nationalist party for his human rights activities.

Immigration and refugees

The number of asylum-seekers in Slovakia has been rising quite dramatically in recent years, and the number of those granted asylum has been dropping. From the creation of the Slovak Republic in January 1993 to November 2001, the number of asylum applications increased four-fold, with a total of 11,091 people asking for asylum in Slovakia during this period.

According to the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in 2000, the total number of applicants was 1,554, an increase of about 241 over the previous year. In 2001, there was a dramatic rise in the number of applications to 8,151. About 50 per cent of these came from Afghanistan, 15 per cent from India and 12 per cent from Iraq. In 2001, only three applicants were granted asylum. In the first ten months of 2002, there were 7,489 applications received.

The Slovanska narodna strana (SNS, Slovak National Party) has always been the most important extreme-right party in Slovak politics, and, up to the recent 2002 elections, has been represented in the Slovak parliament since the first post-Communist elections. In 2002 it won only 3.32 per cent of the vote, a poor showing compared to the 1998 elections in which it won 9.1 per cent, its best result since 1993. The recent decline is no doubt partly due to the internal divisions suffered by the party and its split into factions, both of which polled similar numbers in the election.

In 2001 the SNS was torn apart by internal conflicts between two factions of the party. One was represented by the former party chairman Jan Slota, while the other one supported the current party chairwoman Anna Malikova. The division is more personal than political, as Malikova is as radical as Slota. In September 2001 the leadership, loyal to Malikova, expelled from the party five parliamentary deputies (including Slota) for their ‘destructive activities’. In October Slota and his followers founded the Prava Slovenska narodna strana (PSNS, Real Slovak National Party), which received 3.65 per cent of the vote in 2002 elections.

Both the SNS and PSNS are known for their controversial statements about Hungarians and Romanies. In particular, the PSNS leader Jan Slota and his loyalists are infamous for extreme and often vulgar statements. Both parties support restrictions on ethnic Hungarian activities, and favour an authoritarian approach to the social problems of the Romany community. In international politics both oppose membership in the European Union and in NATO. And both parties openly support the war-time pro-Nazi Slovak state as well as its key leaders.

The PSNS leader and Zilina mayor Jan Slota has been quoted as saying that the problems of the Romany population could be solved ‘with a small courtyard and a whip’. In March 1999, at a party meeting, a drunken Slota threatened to ‘get into our tanks and crush Budapest’, and that Slovaks should defend their territory in southern Slovakia, which is densely populated by ethnic Hungarians, and ‘not give up a single centimetre [of land] to the Hungarian scoundrels’. He also said he would never tolerate a Romany minority in Slovakia because ‘they are Gypsies who steal, rob and pilfer’. He admitted he was drunk, but refused to apologize for his statements as ‘at least half of the nation think the same way’.

For his part, the SNS deputy chairman Vitazoslav Moric said in August 2000 that Romanies who were unable to ‘adapt’ should be placed in reservations to reduce the crime rate. He added that the state must stop providing benefits to ‘people who harm it’, describing the payment of such benefits to Romanies as ‘unjust to the rest of the population’. Moric also said it had been ‘statistically proven that most retarded people’ were Romany, and asked: ‘What is humane about morons being allowed to give birth to more morons and raise the percentage of morons and crazies in the nation?’

Later that month the SNS refused to apologize over the statement. Anna Malikova said that ‘the SNS is interested in a thorough solution to the problem of the Romany ethnic group, because it is not the Gypsies, but the rest of Slovakia’s population that is discriminated against’. The following month the Slovak parliament lifted Moric’s parliamentary immunity. During the debate, one of the HZDS deputies compared Romanies to ‘locusts’ and said they must be isolated because co-existence is impossible.

Both the SNS and PSNS maintain close and strong ties with the nationalist ‘cultural organization’ Matica Slovenska, which in many of its activities and publications promotes a positive attitude towards the war-time pro-Nazi Slovak state. In March 1999 Matica organized a conference on the ‘Slovak Republic 1939–1945’, at which many supporters of the war-time regime took part. Matica also publishes a magazine and a newspaper.

As an official Slovak cultural institution Matica receives money from the state budget. In March 2001 the organization reached an agreement over its state financing, after it had complained that the government had failed to hand over the 19 million SKK (c. US$480,000)  it had set aside for Matica in the budget provisions. The ministry of culture said that the organization’s budget was ‘too vague’ and that it was not clear how it intended to spend the money. Under the new agreement Matica will receive 13 million SKK for cultural projects and the other 6 million SKK when the organization clarifies its expenditure programme.

At a Matica Slovenska rally to protest the demand made by the Hungarian party SMK in October 2000 for a separate administrative district in the Komarno region, in the southern Slovak town of Surany, SNS leader Anna Malikova said: ‘The time of the extended friendly hand is over. Now a fist must be shown and perhaps a weapon prepared.’

In January 2000 Robert Fico, leader of the soon-to-be-founded popular political party SMER (Direction), proposed a draft law that would cut social benefits to Romanies who, as he said, ‘indulge in speculative requests for political asylum’. Fico was at that time Slovakia’s representative at the European Court of Human Rights. In May 2001 Fico said he favoured support for those Slovak Romanies who wanted to look after themselves and to improve the welfare of their community. He added: ‘we have a great mass of Romanies who do not want anything except to lie in bed and survive on social security. These people discovered that because of benefits paid to them it is advantageous to have children who become a source of income.’

Another extreme-right party is Slovenska narodna jednota (SNJ, Slovak National Unity). In the 1998 parliamentary elections it won some 4,000 votes (0.14 per cent) in the whole of Slovakia, and managed 0.15 per cent in 2002. Its leader Stanislav Panis, who is also the director of the Tiso Society, makes a yearly appearance at the party’s 14 March commemoration of the foundation of the war-time pro-Nazi Slovak state held outside the presidential palace in Bratislava. These commemorative activities tend to attract various far-right skinheads. However, attendance has been on the decline; while some 300 (mainly far-right skinheads) participated in 1999, only a few dozen turned up in 2002.

The extreme-right Slovenska ludova strana (SLS, Slovak People’s Party) won 9,227 votes (0.27 per cent) in the 1998 elections, but apparently did not contest the 2002 elections.

Extra-parliamentary parties

In 2002, according to police estimates, there are 3,400 members and sympathizers of extra-parliamentary extremist groups in Slovakia. Fewer than 1,000 are aligned to leftist groups, the rest associated with the extreme right. The hard core of the far-right movement is made up of some 500 people, including skinheads, neo-Nazis and neo-fascists. The police describe the Presov region in eastern Slovakia as the one where the far right is most active.

The far-right skinhead movement in Slovakia is less organized then in the Czech Republic. Police estimate that some 3,000 in Slovakia are sympathetic to the skinhead movement. Among the more active organizations are the Slovakia Hammer Skins (SHS) and various branches of the international Blood and Honour (B&H) movement, most notably Blood & Honour–Division Slovakia.

In May 2001 some 350 skinheads gathered at a concert in Mnichova Lehota, close to Trencin in western Slovakia.

In August 2001 some 300 Slovak and Czech skinheads gathered at the Prievidza cemetery in central Slovakia to commemorate one of their members who had been killed by a Romany five years earlier. Leaflets were distributed calling for an ‘end to racial discrimination against white citizens’. Participants, some wearing T-shirts with swastikas and other Nazi symbols, sang nationalist songs.

In 2001, Slovak police reported forty racially motivated crimes, more than half of which were solved.

Antisemitic incidents

In December 1999, during a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony at the site of the former Great Synagogue in Bratislava, a number of far-right skinheads made provocative remarks and gestures at the crowd, composed of some 150 Jews and passers-by.

In June 2000 vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery in Dunajska Streda, southern Slovakia.

In March 2001 a blast disrupted a ceremony in Poprad, northern Slovakia, commemorating the victims of the first mass deportation of Jewish girls and women to Nazi extermination camps. The mayor of Poprad called the blast, which did not injure any of the participants, ‘provocative’. It was the first time, since its inception ten years earlier, that the annual commemoration has been marred by an incident.

In May 2001 unidentified vandals virtually destroyed the Jewish cemetery in Levice. They knocked over fifty-eight gravestones and stole an unspecified number.

In June 2001 seven tombstones were destroyed by unknown vandals in the Jewish cemetery in Vranov nad Toplou, eastern Slovakia. The cemetery, which was declared a cultural heritage site in 1963, had been vandalized several times before.

In July 2001 historic tombstones in the Jewish cemetery of Zvolen, western Slovakia, were destroyed by unknown perpetrators.

In October 2001 police reported that large swastikas and inscriptions of ‘Juden Raus’ (Jews Out) were spray-painted by unknown perpetrators on a building in central Kosice.

Anti-Romany incidents

In September 1999 racist leaflets were placed in Romany mailboxes in the town of Roznava, eastern Slovakia. The leaflets called on ‘the white man’ to stand up and defend what is his ‘by right, in the name of his ancestors’.

In October 1999 three skinheads beat up a twenty-year-old Romany man at a bus stop near Bratislava’s main railway station. The three men reportedly kicked and beat him until he lost consciousness. The daily Pravda later reported that the police had charged three young men with disturbing the peace and racially motivated assault in connection with the attack.

In December 1999 a skinhead assaulted a twenty-one-year-old Romany man in a village close to Bratislava. Romanies in the village then gathered in a local pub with chains and knives and assaulted the alleged attacker and an individual sitting next to him in the pub. At a subsequent meeting, local Romanies told the mayor that youths in the village regularly appeared near their houses, threatened them and shouted slogans such as ‘Heil Hitler’ and ‘Gypsies to the gas’. A police spokesperson described the first incident as one of ‘youthful imprudence’ and ruled out a racial motive. In March 2000 the police announced it was investigating seven Romany men on charges of assault and rioting.

In March 2000 non-Romany residents of the western Slovak town of Hlohovec collected signatures for a petition opposing plans by the municipal authorities to move Roma into a house in a predominantly non-Romany neighbourhood. One of the initiators of the petition told the daily Sme: ‘If the city does not desist, we are prepared to destroy the house ourselves.’

In August 2000 a Romany woman died from injuries sustained when three men entered her home and beat both her and her daughters with baseball bats. The woman and her family were attacked while asleep in their home in Zilina, northern Slovakia. Later that month the Slovak parliament held a minute of silence in honour of the victim. In March 2001 a soldier in Banska Bystrica was prosecuted for the murder.

In September 2000 telephones connected to the Slovak telecommunications network Globtel were flooded by messages offering users a ‘free fifty minutes for every Romany you kill’.

Also in February 2001 more than 2,000 inhabitants of the eastern Slovak town of Medzilaborce signed a petition against the resettlement in their town of five Romany families living in slums between the nearby villages. The petition was also signed by Romanies from Medzilaborce, who criticized the state administration for solving the problems of ‘foreign Romanies’ while ignoring their problems.

In April 2001 anti-Romany stickers appeared in Kosice, eastern Slovakia. The text, signed ‘an intelligent Romany’, exhorted ‘the stupid white person’ to pay even higher taxes to support ‘the Romanies in Slovakia [who] live in bad conditions’: ‘When you are out of money we will get you out of your house, rape your wife and kill your children.’

In April 2001 three skinheads attacked a thirty-year-old Slovak in Bratislava whose darker skin resembled that of a Romany or some other ethnic minority. The man was stabbed and died on the spot. In another attack in Bratislava, two men, aged 22 and 23, who were neither foreign nor Romany, were stabbed by skinheads and hospitalized with injuries.

In July 2001 Karol Sendrei, a fifty-one-year-old Romany, died from multiple wounds at a police station. The man and his two sons had been taken to the station where they were allegedly tied to a radiator and beaten. Sendrei was pronounced dead the following morning, while one of his sons was hospitalized. The incident took place in the small town of Revuca, some 200 kilometres north-east of Bratislava. According to the autopsy report Sendrei died of injury shock caused by a torn liver, cranial and pericardial bleeding, a broken jaw, sternum and ribs, and other serious injuries. The police denied they had chained or beaten the man and his sons. In response to the case, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights immediately expressed concern about ‘police violence’ in Slovakia, while Amnesty International accused Slovak police of causing the man’s death under ‘suspicious circumstances’ and of having tortured him and his two sons. The Slovensky Helsinsky vybor (Slovak Helsinki Committee) said the case was ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ of police brutality in handling members of the Romany minority. It said police brutality and the ‘disproportional use of force are quietly tolerated’ by the authorities and by society at large. In October seven police officers were accused of having tortured and cruel treatment.

In August 2001 in Holic, western Slovakia, some 120 Romanies marched in protest against a racial incident earlier in the month, when two young men, aged 17 and 18, beat and injured a young Romany. The victim suffered life-threatening head injuries. A few days later the Slovak police brought charges of ‘causing bodily harm’ against two young men in Holic, who denied sympathy with the skinhead movement. Romanies from Holic had earlier complained that the police ‘do nothing’ to prevent such incidents, complaints that the police denied. Tensions in the city ran high when skinheads in cars circled the Romany protesters and the police had to deploy all local forces and request reinforcements from other districts.

In October 2001 a group of fifteen skinheads attacked six young Romany men in Prievidza, central Slovakia. One Romany was hospitalized after being struck on the head with a stick. Police said an investigation was launched to determine whether the attack was racially motivated.

A group of twenty skinheads attacked passengers riding a bus in Kosice in February 2002. The skinheads assaulted some 20 to 30 Romanies and non-Romanies, shouting ‘black bastards’ to the Romanies, and injuring some of the passengers.

Also in February 2002 a police officer in Jarovnice, eastern Slovakia, refused to shake hands with a Romany journalist, asking her to show him a ‘health certificate’. His supervisor expressed approval of his behaviour, which provoked a wave of strong criticism from organizations of journalists and NGOs. In reaction, the interior minister said he would not tolerate any racism in the police force.

Anti-Hungarian incidents

In February 2001 some 300 people from the Organizacia Slovenskej narodnej mladeze (Slovak National Youth Organization) demonstrated against the planned establishment of a Hungarian Pedagogical Faculty at Nitra University. The demonstrators chanted ‘Hungarians, go back over the Danube’ and ‘Slovakia for Slovaks’. The Hungarian faculty was approved by the Slovak government.

In March 2001 anti-Hungarian graffiti desecrated the statue of the Hungarian national poet Sandor Petofi in Bratislava. Vandals painted the statue with slogans such as ‘Go home’, calls for a ban of the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) and obscene words. Anti-Hungarian slogans also appeared on the main entrance to Hungarian language primary and high school buildings in Kosice, including demands for ‘a clean Slovakia’ and ‘Hungarians to the other bank of the Danube’. The windows of a Hungarian school in Bratislava were broken as well, while later in March vandals painted anti-Hungarian inscriptions on the Hungarian consulate in Kosice.

SNS chairwoman Anna Malikova suggested that the SMK may have been behind these acts, because ‘it suits them to set up such a smoke screen’ as they do not want Slovakia to talk about ‘Hungarian expansionism’ that ‘threatens the interests of the Slovak state’. Slovak Prime Minister Dzurinda said he was very concerned about the graffiti.

One month later, in April, more anti-Hungarian graffiti appeared on the walls of a Hungarian school in Kosice. The inscriptions read ‘Hungarians back across the Danube’ and had a large 'H' circled with a slash through it, meaning ‘no Hungarians’. The graffiti was signed by an unknown organization, calling itself Narodna obroda (National Revival). A flyer left behind, produced by the organization, stated that it represented those who wanted to see a ‘definitive end to Hungarian expansionism’ and to protect the national interests and the national identity of Slovakia and the Slovaks.

Xenophobic incidents

In July 1999 a group of eight youths attacked a senior Chinese diplomat and two Chinese nationals. The diplomat suffered head injuries and was hospitalized. Slovak authorities said they ‘deeply regretted’ the attack, which was carried out at a trolleybus stop. Eyewitness reports described the attackers as skinheads.

Explicit Holocaust denial is rare in Slovakia, though revisionist interpretations of the pro-Nazi Slovak State in general, and its leader Jozef Tiso in particular, do often include the trivialization of the Holocaust. Good examples are provided by current PSNS leader Slota, who has said: ‘I condemn the fact that 67,000 Jews were taken out of Slovakia, but that is no reason to spit on this state.’ Or, with regard to President Tiso, Slota stated that, if it were not for Tiso, ‘the number of those [Jews] deported [to extermination camps] would have been at least 19,000 higher’.

In a statement released in March 2002 UCZNO claimed that Holocaust denial is becoming increasingly common in Slovakia. The statement said: ‘the Holocaust has a strange afterlife’ in Slovakia, with growing numbers denying that it happened, ‘despite a large number of witnesses, archives . . . documentaries, newspaper articles and mass graves’. It described Holocaust denial as part of a struggle on the part of its proponents to ‘control the past in order to master the future’.

Research conducted by the Focus polling agency in 1999 found that Romanies provoke negative reactions in 90 per cent of the Slovak population, Ukrainians in 56 per cent, Hungarians in 53 per cent, refugees in 44 per cent, Albanians in 36 per cent, Vietnamese in 28 per cent, Blacks in 15 per cent, and Jews in 9 per cent.

In December 1999 the Czech daily Hospodarske noviny cited a poll that found that more than three out of five Slovaks (60.4 per cent) said they favoured separating the country’s Romany minority from the majority population as well as the idea of creating different schools for Romany children.

According to a Focus poll conducted in May 2001, 73 per cent of Slovaks thought that refugees cost Slovakia too much money; 60 per cent thought they spread various diseases; 63 per cent thought they contributed to the rise of crime in the country; 50 per cent thought they should be sent home or to another country as soon as possible; and 50 per cent thought they took job opportunities away from the domestic population. Despite that, 78 per cent said they were ready to help refugees.

Publications

In December 1999 the first textbook on Romany history was introduced in Slovak schools. Eighteen months later, in July 2001, the textbook, written by the well-known ethnologist Arne B. Mann, was criticized by the Slovak Romany Initiative for being a racist text. Its chairman, Alexander Patkolo, said the textbook primarily describes how Romanies are different from other groups and does not deal with Romany history itself. He also said the book presents Romanies in a negative light. As an example, Patkolo quoted the statement that, as recently as fifty years ago, Romanies made their living by dancing with trained bears and monkeys. The ministry of education denied that the textbook had been approved for use or distribution to schools.

While the Slovak far-right skinhead movement does not have a formal structure, there are a few organized local groups that publish magazines containing racist, antisemitic and ultra-nationalist material. More than ten such magazines exist, including Gardista, White Department, Our Guard, Edelweis, The Right of Whites, White Victory and Radical Block.

Matica Slovenska publishes Slovenske narodne noviny (Slovak National Newspaper), which includes extreme anti-Hungarian and anti-Czech material, as well as articles expressing approval of representatives of the Slovak war-time ‘Ludak’ regime. A second publication of Matica Slovenska is the magazine Slovakia which publishes similar content.

Internet sites

The far-right Slovak skinhead movement operates a few Internet websites. As a consequence of the pressure and initiative of the organization Ludia proti rasizmu (People against Racism), many of these sites have ceased to exist or have been regularly forced to change their address. Currently the two most important working websites are those of the Slovakia Hammer Skins (thought its last update was in 2000) and the rather sophisticated White Front page, which includes a link to the Free Word magazine.

Legal instruments

In January 2001 the Slovak government approved the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages, which refers to the use and protection of minority languages in education, the judiciary, state and local administration, the media and culture. The Slovak government said it would apply the charter only to municipalities in which at least 20 per cent of the population speak a minority language. The charter was criticized by a leader of Matica Slovenska, who called the approval of the charter ‘an insult to Slovaks’. The charter was signed by the Slovak foreign minister in February.

In November 2001 the Slovak parliament passed an amendment to the Penal Code making denial of the Holocaust and the belittling of its crimes a punishable offence. Justice ministry official Daniel Lipsic (vice-chairman of the KDH) argued against the amendment, saying a free society should not punish people for expressing opinions, even if those opinions are objectionable.

Prosecutions

In August 2000 the Slovak Romany Initiative organization launched a criminal suit against SNS deputy chairman Vitazoslav Moric, charging him with spreading racial hatred, defamation of a race and propaganda for a movement suppressing civil liberties.

In January 2001 the publisher of the first Slovak translation of Mein Kampf was charged with support for a movement suppressing citizens’ rights and freedoms.

In March 2001 a soldier in Banska Bystrica admitted that he had participated in the murder of a Romany woman and mother of eight. He denied any connection to the skinhead movement though he admitted the murder occurred after a skinhead concert he and his friends had attended in Bolesov, central Slovakia. The military court of the Banska Bystrica district sentenced the twenty-one-year-old to seven years in prison for intentionally causing death. In August 2001 a court in Zilina handed down prison terms for three other men, after finding them guilty of ‘trespassing’, but not of the racially motivated murder of the Romany woman.

In September 2001 police in Popradno, 100 kilometres north-east of Bratislava, detained ninety skinheads and seized neo-Nazi paraphernalia at a concert in the town. The detained skinheads were released the next day. The concert was attended by some 600 skinheads from seven different countries. It was the first police action of this kind in Slovakia.

In October 2001 seven members of the Slovak police were charged with having tortured and cruelly treated the Romany Karol Sendrei in July, resulting in his death. If convicted, they face up to fifteen years in prison.

In February 2002 the Slovak police seized neo-Nazi material during a search of the apartment of a German citizen in Banska Bystrica, central Slovakia. Among the material were publications, 10,000 CDs and T-shirts with neo-Nazi themes. According to the Czech News Agency (CTK), forty Slovak policemen and ten investigators from Germany as well as representatives of Interpol took part in the operation.

European Court

The ERRC in October 2001 filed a complaint with the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg over the case of a Romany who died of injuries suffered while in police custody in August 1999. The official Slovak version of the case claims Lubomir Sarissky was questioned at a police station because he was suspected of stealing a bicycle and that during questioning he snatched a gun from the investigator and shot himself into the stomach. He died despite undergoing three operations. However, before his death, Sarissky told a friend in the hospital that he was injured by a police officer. The officer was given a one-year suspended sentence in October 2000.

In May 2000 the Slovak government approved an Action Programme against All Forms of Discrimination, Racism, Xenophobia, Antisemitism and Other Forms of Intolerance. Even though NGOs have criticized the plan, all levels of the state administration have been implementing the programme.

In August 2000 the government decided that a ‘day of remembrance’ for victims of the Nazi Holocaust and racial hatred would be marked on 9 September, the day when the Slovak state in 1941 issued the so-called ‘Jewish code’ that instituted repressive and discriminatory measures against the Jews.

In reaction to the brutal murder of a Romany woman in August 2000 some 300 people, including Slovak parliamentary deputies, gathered in the centre of Zilina to protest racism against Romanies.

In November 2000 the initiative People against Racism organized a month-long Slovak campaign against racism, connected with the World Day against Fascism and Antisemitism. 372 groups of activists in more then 79 Slovak cities participated.

In March 2001 a ‘march of tolerance’, organized by People against Racism, took place in the streets of Bratislava. The aim was to express opposition against fascism, racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and other forms of discrimination on the anniversary of the establishment of the pro-Nazi Slovak state. Candles were lit in memory of the victims of fascism, racism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination. Among the participants was the speaker of the Slovak parliament, Jozef Migas, who condemned the war-time state as a fascist puppet, as well as the ministers of agriculture and education and other politicians.

In September 2001 a hotline against racism was set up by People against Racism. Victims of racially motivated attacks would be able to call the hotline. A lawyer for the initiative said: ‘Many people do not know whom to contact’ in such cases, or ‘do not trust the police, or the police refuse to help them’. He added that only a small number of racially motivated attacks, and ‘almost no activities of the neo-Nazis’ are reported to the police. ‘We want to collect that information’, he said, adding that the hotline ‘guarantees anonymity and pursuing the matter further’.

On 10 December 2001 People against Racism marked Human Rights Day by launching a campaign called ‘Racism Is Your Problem Too’. According to the organization, ‘tolerance is what Slovakia needs most’, and ‘at a time when a multicultural society is slowly emerging worldwide, the voices of understanding must become stronger than those of racism, discrimination, intolerance and prejudice’. A similar campaign was organized by the organization in 2000.

In December 2001 the first meeting of the Committee for Racially Motivated Crimes took place at the interior ministry. The Committee will also deal with the suggestions and programmes of anti-racist NGOs.

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Institute for Jewish Policy Research

© JPR 2002