Far-right LSNS leader Marian Kotleba in parliament. (source: Sme)
On July 26, a prosecutor from the Special Prosecutor’s Office (ÚŠP) pressed charges against the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) leader Marian Kotleba for demonstrating sympathy for a movement directed at suppression of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Kotleba now faces a sentence of up to eight years in prison. This goes back to the donations that Kotleba made last year, in the form of vouchers worth €1,488, to three families at an event marking the founding of the (Nazi-Germany inclined) wartime Slovak state in Banská Bystrica, the Sme daily wrote on July 28.
Why is the amount a problem?
The number 1,488 is widely known in Neo-Nazi circles: 88 is the Nazi code for Heil Hitler (as H is the eighth letter of alphabet), and the number 14 signifies the Fourteen Words coined by prominent white nationalist and Ku Klux Klan member, David Lane: (We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children).
“By publicly using (neo)Nazi and extremist symbols, he expressed his sympathies to racist and Nazi ideology aimed at suppressing fundamental rights and freedoms and declaring racist and ethnic-based hatred,” ÚŠP spokesperson Jana Tökölyová told the TASR newswire.
Several ĽSNS members have faced various lawsuits at different courts. Recently, MP Stanislav Mizík was tried by the Specialised Criminal Court in Pezinok (Bratislava Region) for a defamatory status update he made on a social network. The court eventually dropped the indictment against him on July 4.
