SNS rails against Hungarian plaque on Csemadok building

Slovakia's nationalist party SNS has urged Culture Minister Marek Maďarič to halt financing of the ethnic Hungarians' cultural club Csemadok after a plaque was unveiled on its building marking the 15th anniversary of a rally calling for the minority's partial independence in Slovakia. Earlier on Thursday, January 22, the SNS, a co-ruling parliamentary party, continued to criticise the commemorative ceremony held on January 18 in Komarno where opposition SMK MP Miklós Duray called for Hungarians in Slovakia to be granted the right of self-determination, according to the TASR newswire.

"It is not acceptable that plaques inscribed in Hungarian of the celebration of autonomy should be unveiled on Csemadok's buildings ... that are financed from state coffers," said SNS deputy chairwoman Anna Belousovova at a press conference on January 22 in Bratislava. She stressed that pronouncements of autonomy and attempts at its realisation are unconstitutional, reiterating that the rights of minorities in Slovakia are above average. TASR

Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports

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