Billboard company euroAWK on Wednesday, May 5, expressed regret over the fact that their advertising space had been used to present an image evoking racial hatred, the TASR newswire reported. According to a company representative, euroAWK immediately pasted over 29 such billboards across Slovakia at the company's own expense. It said it wants to dissociate itself from the type of political campaigning represented by the advertisement, which was for the Slovak National Party (SNS).
The SNS poster features a photograph of a heavily tattooed, bare-chested Roma man with the slogan: 'So that we don't feed those who don't want to work'.
According to Ondrej Dostál from non-parliamentary OKS party, the SNS has thus demonstrated its anti-Roma agenda. He said that he had filed a criminal complaint at the General Prosecutor's office, at the Slovak Trade Inspectorate (SOI) and at the Advertisements Committee in connection with the billboards.
Another party, Most-Híd, also expressed revulsion at the billboards; its MP József Berényi, who is chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Human Rights, Minorities and the Status of Women, condemned them.
SNS caucus leader Rafael Rafaj that the party's election team will deal with euroAWK's actions, TASR reported. "I can assess it as an inadequate and unjustified intervention in our rights and it was surely a highly subjective evaluation of the situation … I am sure our lawyers will deal with it," said Rafaj.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
