THE OPPOSITION Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) has filed a criminal complaint against Ján Slota, the leader of the ruling coalition Slovak National Party (SNS), for inflammatory statements he made about ethnic Hungarians to domestic and foreign media before and after the June 17 parliamentary elections.
According to SMK spokeswoman Lívia Solymos, Slota’s statements represent an offence against a nation, race, or belief, which is a crime in Slovakia, the SITA news agency wrote.
In support of the charges, the SMK submitted records of Slota's statements for the commercial TV Joj station and Viva Radio, as well as interviews for the Czech daily Lidové noviny and the Austrian paper Die Presse.
Solymos said that the SMK considered Slota's statements dangerous for society because they expressed hatred towards members of Slovakia’s 500,000-strong ethnic Hungarian minority.
In July, for instance, Slota told Lidové Noviny that the Hungarian minority in the south of Slovakia is oppressing the Slovak majority.
"We [SNS] are fighting those representatives of the SMK who as a minority are oppressing the majority nation on its own territory," Slota said.
