On April 29, the Pravda daily ran an interview with Ivan Petranský, head of the Nation's Memory Institute (ÚPN), who said that HZDS head Vladimír Mečiar had phoned to scold him for lacking courage.
Mečiar continued that he does not speak to stupid people and reiterated that the ÚPN would be shut down, Petranský said, adding that he has ideas for why SNS head Ján Slota, who nominated him to the post, now wants to see the ÚPN shut down.
Slota’s objections are related to sensitive information that the ÚPN recently released about his criminal past, Petranský said. A researcher, who was in reality a journalist, asked for access to information about Slota while looking into who was an agent for the communist intelligence service (ŠtB), which Slota never has been, Petranský said.
Petranský reminded the daily that every researcher is obliged to protect personal data made available by the ÚPN. SITA
b > Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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